An open letter to Eddie Howe | OneFootball

An open letter to Eddie Howe

I don’t get out much these days, so every other week when the lads are at home, I take the opportunity to spend some quality time with my son, with the match at St James’ Park being the focal point of the day.

My lad is now 19 years old. We’ve been doing this since he was seven and so it’s fair to say that the ritual, both pre and post-match, has massively changed over the past 12 years or so.

It’s also got significantly more expensive after migrating from a packet of fruit gums and a bottle of coke (diet of course) to a full-on assault on the pumps in the Adelphi (apologies, I can’t bring myself to refer to it by the name that you might know it as these days).

Since you became manager, it’s fair to say that the hour and a half we spend watching what’s put out on the hallowed turf has also improved. In fact, it’s unrecognisable from the tripe that Mike, I know the price of everything but the value of nothing, CAshley put us through, with a succession of managers that couldn’t hold a candle to your good self (Rafa Benitez excluded).

Earlier in the season, I was having my doubts.

We hadn’t made the best of starts and I was questioning your tactical nous. I wasn’t the only one mind, but you weathered the storm and proved me and the other doubting Thomas’ wrong.

Just look at us now, flying once again, a second Wembley appearance coming up in March and a real possibility of grabbing another Champions League berth come the end of the season. To hell with it, we might even win the FA Cup as well.

What still slightly irks me, if you don’t mind me saying, is that in the one game you’ve led us into that truly mattered since you arrived on the scene, we lost. That was the League Cup Final of 2023, where Man Utd did us over. Perhaps the most galling thing about that whole episode was that we absolutely annihilated them at St James’ Park less than six weeks after suffering the ignominy of yet another Wembley loss.

Leaving that aside, I really believe you have instilled in the lads a winning mentality. We’ve played four semi-final ties with you at the helm and won them all. When we needed a point against Leicester City in May 2023, we got it. We also hammered PSG on a night that many have said eclipsed that famous 3-2 against Barcelona when Tino Asprilla ran the Catalans ragged.

And this gets me to my point.

Me and the lad will be bonding in the smoke on the weekend of 15/16 March. I am looking forward to it immensely, but it’ll be a very different experience to the one we had in 2023, partly because the lad can now drink me under the table, but also because I am 100% certain that you will bring home the cup this time, no matter the opponent and no matter the outcome of those previous visits to the Empire Stadium during my lifetime.

Should you do this, you will achieve immortality, so there’s no better incentive. When returning to Tyneside, your knighthood will await.