When is a fair time to judge a manager? | OneFootball

Don’t Panic!

Steve McClaren once asked to be judged after 10 games as Newcastle United manager. That was nonsense really. We could see straight away we were having a bad season – and we ended up getting relegated despite the best efforts of Rafa Benitez at the end of that season.

So when is a fair time to judge a manager?

Well, it’s hard to say.

Could we take eight Premier League games as a judgement of this season? Probably not, but that’s where we’re at, so let’s give it a go.

After eight PL games Newcastle United have nine points. That’s an undeniable fact.

Of the four seasons that Eddie Howe has started, this is our lowest points total after eight Premier League games (11 in 22/23, 13 in 23/24 and 12 in 24/25). On the face of it that’s not excellent – though it is six points more than we had in the last season started by a manager other than Howe.

But I’d very much argue that it’s nothing to be worried about, in much the same way that a quarter of the way through the Champions League group stage, our 11th out of 36 position isn’t something to be complacent about.

Is there an argument that the reason for our low points total is that we’ve had a tough start to the season? Possibly. Our Premier League results this season have been very much a mixed bag.

Let’s compare them to last season’s matching fixtures – last season’s in brackets. I’ve swapped Leeds for Leicester (1st in the Championship for the top placed relegated team)

Villa away 0-0 (4-1 loss) Liverpool home 2-3 (3-3 draw) Leeds away 0-0 (Leicester 3-0 win) Wolves home 1-0 (3-0 win) Bournemouth away 0-0 (1-1 draw) Arsenal home 1-2 (1-0 win) Forest home 2-0 (4-3 win) Brighton away 1-2 (1-1)

I’m not sure that little bit of research has cheered me up, as 15 points from the corresponding fixtures last season. So maybe the points total isn’t due to the tough start. In mitigation, we had to start the season without a proper striker. That obviously doesn’t help anyone.

Almost everyone I speak to seems to be really worried about our poor start to the season. Everyone except Andrew that is, he’s the most blindly optimistic person in the world.

So why am I not worried? Well, because eight games is far too soon to be judging a season. Eddie’s best start was only four points better than this, and that good start actually led to our lowest league finishing position for a full Eddie Howe season. We’ve had to completely change our style of play to suit a new striker, he’s scored plenty of goals, and it’s only a matter of time until the others around him start to click.

Our next few weeks are unbelievably congested, it’s going to be hard work and need us to use the full squad. But this is the sort of problem we dreamed of for so long under the previous owner.

We’ve got an excellent chance to do well in the Champions League with two winnable home games in the next few weeks.

Newcastle United also have a run of less difficult Premier League games coming up (a 2-1 loss, a 1-0 win and a 4-2 loss last season, but I’ve already proven that last season’s results are meaningless above) and a home game defending our League Cup against a Tottenham team with exactly the same fixture congestion problems we have.

I’ll stick my neck out and say we’re going to do well in the run of games up until the next round of international fixtures.

I’m the world’s worst gambler, but I’m confident we get 6+ points from the three Premier League matches, 4+ in the two Champions League games, then we will all be a lot happier in mid-November.

Don’t blame me if we’re not happy in November though. I’ve already told you, I’m a terrible gambler.