Eddie Howe to accept England job? Absolutely zero chance but you can understand why they want him | OneFootball

A lot of talk about Eddie Howe and the England vacancy.

Gareth Southgate having resigned this (16 July 2024) morning.

Southgate having spent eight years in the job, with Sunday’s losing Euros final his last of 102 matches in charge of England.

The big question is, who will the FA appoint to replace him?

As a reminder, here are the 20 managers currently in charge of Premier League clubs.

This is now the current position for longstanding Premier League managers and their start dates  – as at 16 July 2024:

Pep Guardiola (Man City) 1 July 2016

Thomas Frank (Brentford) 16 October 2018

Mikel Arteta (Arsenal) 22 December 2019

Marco Silva (Fulham) 1 July 2021

Eddie Howe (Newcastle United) 8 November 2021

Kieran McKenna (Ipswich Town) 16 December 2021

Erik Ten Hag (Man Utd) 23 May 2022

Unai Emery (Villa) 1 November 2022

Sean Dyche (Everton) 30 January 2023

Ange Postecoglou (Spurs) 6 June 2023

Andoni Iraola (Bournemouth) 19 June 2023

Russell Martin (Southampton) 21 June 2023

Gary O’Neil (Wolves) 9 August 2023

Nuno (Forest) 20 December 2023

Oliver Glasner (Palace) 19 February 2024

Arne Slot (Liverpool) 1 June 2024

Steve Cooper (Leicester) 20 June 2024

Fabian Hurzeler (Brighton) 2 July 2024

Enzo Maresca (Chelsea) 1 July 2024

Julen Lopetegui (West Ham) 1 July 2024

Now I don’t know about you, but I can’t see any way that the FA is going to go back to the foreign manager experiment, that saw Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello getting the England job in 2001 and 2008 respectively.

So that for me rules out for sure 15 of the 20 current Premier League managers, as well as the likes of Klopp, Pochettino and other out of work foreign managers who have seen their names put forward by various people.

We are left with five Premier League managers born in England – Gary O’Neil, Russell Martin, Sean Dyche, Kieran McKenna and Eddie Howe.

Kieran McKenna was born in London but grew up in Northern Ireland and played his international football (at younger age groups) for Northern Ireland, so as well as other factors potentially, no way he will be getting considered for the England job.

Similarly, Russell Martin was born in Brighton but played 29 times for Scotland, so as per McKenna I don’t see him as any kind of a contender. Which leaves us with three.

After the negative approach of Gareth Southgate, the thought of Sean Dyche replacing him, would just be the worst of the worst. Everton are woeful to watch and last season, only rock bottom Sheffield United scored less Premier League goals than the embarrassing 40 that Everton managed.

As for Gary O’Neil, I think he has done well and is potentially a very decent manager, but he has spent less than two years as a manager with Bournemouth and Wolves. I couldn’t see him leaving Wolves either, never mind England asking him.

So as you can see, no wonder Eddie Howe is seeing his name put out there by many people to replace Gareth Southgate.

I think he would be ideal for the job BUT the days are long gone when the England job was seen as the very pinnacle for any Englishman. It is a long long time since anybody left a job with a big top tier English club, to take the job.

The last 25 years it is the likes of Steve McClaren, Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce and Gareth Southgate who have happily accepted the England job, that is the reality.

Newcastle United fans can relax, there is zero chance of Eddie Howe taking the job, if he is sounded out about it.

He has so much unfinished business at Newcastle United and the NUFC job is far more prestigious than the England one for sure, in my opinion. By the way, I would say the same about other top PL jobs, zero chance of say Pep Guardiola leaving Man City for Spain, same with Mikel Arteta at Arsenal, even Erik ten Hag at Man U!!

Maybe one day in years to come when he is thinking of semi-retirement, taking it a bit easier, Eddie Howe might consider England. However, no way the workaholic NUFC boss is going to walk away from a job that he has built such exciting foundations at, with the potential of so much to come in the future.

So where does that leave the FA and filling their vacancy

Well, unless out of work Graham Potter is willing to take it on after 15 months out of work, which I don’t think is the case, then everything points to this man.

No, that man is very definitely not another out of work (and unemployable?) Englishman in Frank Lampard.

Instead, it looks nailed on that if Potter isn’t interested, it will be a repeat of the Gareth Southgate appointment.

After failing as a club manager at Middlesbrough and his sacking in 2009, Southgate eventually got back into management with the England Under 21s in 2013. Three years later he was promoted to the senior England job.

Just last summer Lee Carsley actually won the under 21s Euros with England, beating Spain in the final!

I think he will be named the new England manager.

The bookies certainly think it could be on, with Graham Potter on his way out from around even money to 2/1 now, whilst Lee Carsley was as high as 33/1, then came in to 12/1, now (1.30pm on Tuesday 16 July 2024) he is 9/4 and very likely to be favourite imminently.

Interesting to see what happens but time is of the essence, as in just seven weeks time qualifying for the 2026 World Cup begins for England, when they have a Nations League match against the Republic of Ireland on 7 September.