After masterminding a victory over Leicester we’re putting Eddie Howe in the running for manager of the season. If only there wasn’t a clear Barclays bias towards Arne Slot and Liverpool…
We imagine Liverpool fans will receive the suggestion that Eddie Howe is even in the running to be named manager of the season in similar baulking good grace to Virgil van Dijk when it was put to him by Michael Owen that winning the title won’t be “special” enough given what was on offer before their petering out started in mid-March.
It would be a surprise. Only once since Tony Pulis won it for taking Crystal Palace away from relegation peril to 11th in 2013/14 has the gong been claimed by a manager other than the title winner, when Jurgen Klopp won it in 2021/22 having come within a point of champions Manchester City while winning both domestic cups and reaching the Champions League final.
Denying Arne Slot the award having taken on what many believed to be The Impossible Job of replacing Klopp at Anfield and leading Liverpool in a cruise to just their second Premier League title feels unlikely no matter how much their foot comes off the gas over the course of the remaining seven games of the season, particularly given the clear bias towards title-winners by the board of Barclays bankers.
But Liverpool continuing to stumble over the line offers hope of an alternative victor if the decision-makers are anything like 90 per cent of football fans in being perfectly willing to forego the seven months of absolute dominance and focus on two months of indifference in order to argue a Liverpool Aren’t All That claim that’s already been established thanks to Manchester City going off the boil to hand them a supposedly easy path to glory.
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Nuno Espirito Santo is a problem for Slot with the Portuguese boss on course to take Nottingham Forest into the Champions League after three decades out of Europe having taken over a team in 17th place last season on ten points after 17 games, and so too is Eddie Howe.
While a 3-0 victory over a Leicester side that’s now gone nearly 13 hours without scoring a Premier League goal isn’t the most obvious game after which to be hailing the genius of a football manager, Jacob Murphy did his bit in staking Howe’s claim as the best when it comes to improving players.
The winger, who will forever be among the Newcastle players named amid talks of upgrades and squad revamps, took his top-flight goals tally for the season to seven after a neat finish at the back post before he followed in Fabian Schar’s extraordinary effort from his own half which came off the bar, to go with his eight assists.
And the victory takes Newcastle into fifth place, level on points with Chelsea in fourth, and with a game in hand on the Blues and the chasing pack they are now odds-on to claim one of those Champions League qualification spots. Par for the course, you might say, but just two of us geniuses saw them finishing in the top four at the start of the season.
That achievement, allied with Carabao Cup glory ending their 70-year trophy drought, would make this the greatest Newcastle season in the modern era; one that would make Howe a deserving winner of a manager of the season accolade, if not the one the prejudiced Barclays panel look sure to award Slot when all’s said and done.
