“He is an innovator” – Newcastle’s Eddie Howe issues glowing praise on Manchester City and Pep Guardiola after 1-1 draw | OneFootball

Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe has issued Pep Guardiola and Manchester City with glowing praise after the two sides’ 1-1 draw at St James’ Park on Saturday.

After a largely well-contested affair across the 90 minutes, with far more threat from the hosts in the second-half, Newcastle and Manchester City were made to share the points upon the final whistle.

Josko Gvardiol opened the scoring in the first-half combining well with Jack Grealish before smartly turning inside the penalty area to curl home with his weaker right foot. A second-half penalty from Anthony Gordon would tie the scores level.

Speaking with television broadcasters after the encounter at St James’ Park, Eddie Howe was quizzed on his lengthy post-match interaction with Pep Guardiola upon the full-time whistle, and the Englishman only had fine words to see about his managerial counterpart.

“Pep [Guardiola] is someone I really admire,” Howe said. “I admire how he plays the game, how he sees the game. For me, he is an innovator, he consistently takes the game to new ways.”

He continued, “As a coach you’ve got to watch and understand his team and try to find solutions – it’s not easy. I think he’s really good for the English game, the British game, having him here makes the league better.

“Our challenge is to get closer and closer, or try and get closer and closer to teams like Manchester City, and they’re the benchmark.”

Pep Guardiola would go on to repay the compliments during his post-match assessment with the media, admitting how much he admired his instructions and approach to the contest, taking Manchester City head-on for large parts of the match.

“I said to him how I admire him and for the way they approached the game, in high-pressing, so direct,” said Guardiola. “They have a lot of legs with [Jacob] Murphy, [Anthony] Gordon, [Harvey] Barnes – we controlled them really, really well in the most part of the game, especially when we play so, so high.

“Bruno [Guimaraes], and Joelinton, the physicality, [Sandro] Tonali, and after the central defenders so high. It’s such a difficult team. Newcastle last season struggled a little bit for just one reason; a lot of injuries. Otherwise that team competes really well.”

Continuing specifically on the subject of Eddie Howe, Guardiola said, “A manager for many years, a lot of times, and never creates a problem in press conferences, always polite for opponents, like we try to do as a Club.”

Pep Guardiola and Manchester City return to action with a meeting against Slovan Bratislava on Tuesday night, looking to end a run of three successive matches without a win and open up their account in the UEFA Champions League for another season.