Newcastle fire hands-off warning to England over Eddie Howe – but even Toon legend Shearer says he’s right fit
NEWCASTLE UNITED have issued a hands-off warning to England over Eddie Howe – and revealed it’ll cost the FA more than they bargained for to get him.
But despite their best efforts to keep hold of their gaffer, Magpies legend Alan Shearer has insisted that Howe is the right man to replace Gareth Southgate.
Newcastle are ready to back Eddie Howe big in the transfer market to help get them back into the Champions League, despite potential interest from England.
The 46-year-old Toon boss is one of the favourites to replace Gareth Southgate at the Three Lions’ helm.
And Shearer reckons that the links are with good reason – claiming that Howe would be a good fit for the national team.
Speaking to Betfair, he said: “I would imagine the outstanding candidate would be Eddie Howe.
“I think Eddie has a big decision to make because I’m certain the FA will ask him and then whatever happens after that, we don’t know.
“I’m fairly sure that a conversation will have been had or will be ongoing now within the FA where Eddie Howe’s name will get a mention.
“Whether Eddie wants the job or not will be the key. The fact we’re talking about Eddie and England again means he’s done a really, really good job at Newcastle.
“He’s been fantastic and it’d be a big blow if he leaves because the fans love him, he’s done a remarkable job and he understands the club, but I get it and I understand it.
“Whatever he chooses, if he is tempted by the England job, which I suspect he may be, I don’t think many people could or would stand in his way – albeit Newcastle would lose a very talented manager.”
But even if England are interested and Howe fancies the switch to international management, Newcastle won’t make it easy for their gaffer to walk away.
This felt like our time... but keep Gareth's culture and we can win it in 2026 instead, writes Jack Wilshere
IT will take a while for me and every England fan to get over this, writes Jack Wilshere.
To come so close to winning that trophy, only to be beaten in a second Euros final in a row, is a huge disappointment.
Especially when it really felt like this was our time.
It seemed that everything was coming together for us to end the long wait for a major title.
But Spain deserved it. They were the better team in the final and the best team of the tournament.
We will all — supporters, players, coaches, the FA — have to move on and go again.
Because English football is still in a good position.
Gareth Southgate has taken us to two finals, a semi-final and a quarter-final in four tournaments. We have never produced a run like that before.
The challenge now is to maintain this level of competitiveness and make England even better.
Southgate and his staff have done a fantastic job in changing the whole environment and narrative around the national team.
Now Gareth is gone, the wider culture he has put in place must be preserved.
This tournament was the biggest test of that culture the team had to go through.
They overcame the problems and went all the way, only to fall at the final hurdle.
But there is every reason to believe we can challenge at the World Cup in 2026 and beyond.
We’ve got a really good group of players, many of them young, who can go on playing and performing for England for years.
Jude Bellingham, Kobbie Mainoo, Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer — to name just five — have plenty more tournaments in them.
This tournament will also be an inspiration for the next generations of players. Unfortunately there isn’t the trophy lift to take that to a completely different level.
But England have delivered moments in Germany that will be replayed forever.
The Bellingham overhead kick and Ollie Watkins’ semi-final winner will be recreated in playgrounds and cages up and down the country.
What I would like to see now is England continuing to develop, to become a team that can consistently dominate opponents and can give a real identity to English football.
We now have players who are comfortable on the ball and technically very good.
The biggest disappointment of the tournament was that we didn’t see that as often as we would have liked. That leaves us with a ‘what if?’ feeling.
England must not lose that old-school mentality of finding a way to win even when you’re not playing well — that never-say-die spirit which got us through this Euros more than once.
But the next step is to allow other qualities to shine through, to give the players that our system is creating the platform to show everything they can do.
The job for me and for other coaches is to keep producing players that are comfortable on the ball and understand how to perform under pressure at a high level.
English football is in a good place but we need to keep going. Then we will finally get over the line.
Real all of SunSport columnist Jack Wilshere’s Euro 2024 columns…
A hush-hush deal penned 12 months ago has not only tied him down long-term to St James’ Park, it has also ensured that the FA would need to cough up even more compensation to get the ex-Bournemouth manager.
Newcastle CEO Darren Eales revealed the secret extension from the German pre-season training HQ: “It is speculation on Eddie.
“He has been an amazing manager at the club and he is committed to Newcastle with the work that he has done.
“We are obviously committed to him and had a multi-year extension last summer signed.
“We are on an exciting journey and as far as we are concerned Eddie is the man to lead us on that journey. From our perspective, there is nothing to add.
“We’ve not had recent discussions. What Eddie has been doing in that interim period between Dan [Ashworth] leaving and Paul [Mitchell] coming in is obviously there’s been a lot of discussions going on.
“As far as we’re concerned we’re focused on the new pre-season, excited to be here in Adidas HQ getting ready for the new pre-season.
“As you know with Eddie, the smile on his face when he’s out there with the players. This is what he loves, the two-a-days, working with the players.
“From that perspective he’s committed and doing what you’d expect from Eddie which is focusing on the season ahead.
“I don’t want to deal with hypotheticals. As I mentioned he’s on a multi-year extension that was signed last summer so from that perspective he’s a Newcastle United employee.
“The first thing to say is that in any organisation if you are performing well there will be speculation from other clubs. But Eddie is under a long-term contract with the club.
“You see him, he loves the day to day of club football and we have an exciting project here in terms of the commitment from the ownership and the journey we want to go on.
“We are really excited about this season ahead. There is the disappointment of not making Europe, but the fact is we have the advantage of going Saturday to Saturday and not having the distractions of European football.
“We saw that the season before when we had that amazing year and qualified for the Champions League.
“We have the core of a great squad, a new cycle of PSR, and with Paul Mitchell coming in as sporting director we will hopefully strengthen the squad where we can, while being smart and innovative about that.”
After being forced to offload Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest to ease PSR issues last month, Howe can now look forward to strengthening his squad.
And Eales declared that there is money now they have entered a new PSR window.
Southgate's highs and lows as England boss
GARETH Southgate took charge of 102 games for England before quitting in the aftermath of the Euro 2024 final defeat to Spain.
But what were the best – and worst matches – from the popular gaffer’s eight-year reign before that devastating Sunday night in Berlin? Here we take a look.
THE HIGHS:
Colombia 1-1 England (3-4 on pens,) 2018 World Cup
This was the night that long-suffering supporters finally started to believe that it was coming home.
Despite conceding a late equaliser, England held their nerve to advance to the quarter final of the World Cup 2018 on penalties.
It was our first shootout victory for 22 years.
Spain 2-3 England, 2018 Nations League
Following on from the World Cup, England won in Spain for the first time in 31 years with a brilliant Uefa Nations League victory.
Southgate’s boys stunned the Seville crowd into silence with a thrilling performance that saw them lead 3-0 at the break thanks to a Raheem Sterling brace and Marcus Rashford.
Although the hosts scored two after the break, the way the Three Lions tore La Roja apart excited every fan.
England 2-1 Denmark, Euro 2020 semi-final
Southgate led England to their first major final in 55 years as they beat Denmark after extra-time in the Euro 2020 semi-final.
Having fallen behind after half an hour, the Three Lions battled back to send it to extra-time courtesy of an own goal.
Then it was captain Kane who converted a rebound after Kasper Schmeichel originally saved his penalty in extra-time to win it.
England 3-0 Sengal, 2022 World Cup last 16
England had already blown Iran and Wales, 6-2 and 3-0 respectively, away in the World Cup 2022 group stages before they breezed past Senegal.
The free-scoring Three Lions recorded another big win to set-up a mouthwatering quarter-final against France – what could go wrong?
Italy 1-2 England, Euro qualifiers, 2023
On a night when Harry Kane became England’s all-time top scorer, the Three Lions recorded a first away win over Italy since 1961.
It was the first game since their 2022 World Cup exit, and it ensured a perfect start to their Euro 2022 qualifying campaign.
England 2-1 Holland, Euro 2024 sem-final
The nation doubted Southgate’s men in the semis of Euro 2024, but they responded with a barnstorming display.
Xavi Simons opened the scoring for the Dutch but Harry Kane’s penalty drew us level.
And Ollie Watkins slotted in a brilliant winner in injury time to see the Three Lions into their second successive Euros final.
AND THE LOWS….
Croatia 2-1 England, World Cup semi-final, 2018
Having led England to a first World Cup semi-final since 1990, Southgate men made a dream start as Kieran Trippier put them ahead in the early exchanges.
But Ivan Perisic equalised as the Croats began to take control.
Some of Southgate’s substitutions were then questioned after his team were beaten in extra-time, although many gave him the benefit of the doubt as he returned a hero.
Italy 1-1 England (3-2 pens) Euro 2020 final
Will probably never get a better chance to have secured a trophy for the Three Lions than this final of the last European Championship.
Luke Shaw gave us the lead after just seconds, but just like against Croatia three years earlier, we sat back and let our rivals back into it.
Leonardo Bonucci duly equalised in the second half and the game eventually went to penalties.
The unfortunate Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were all brought on to take a spot-kick, but the brave trio all missed as the Azzurri broke our hearts to take the prize.
England 0-4 Hungary, Nations League 2023
A year on from the Euros and it was utter embarrassment for Southgate in this Nations League game at Molineux.
It was our biggest home defeat since 1928 and the result led to England being relegated from the top group of the Nations League and back to one that contained the Republic of Ireland, Finland and Greece.
England 1-2 France, World Cup 2022 quarter-finals
Another case of what could have been.
Having been free-scoring throughout Qatar 2022, many fancied us to go all the way at the World Cup despite taking on the holders in the quarters.
We fought back from going behind to level through Kane and many believe that France were then there for the taking had Southgate deployed a more attacking approach.
Instead, they seemed content with what they had until Olivier Giroud pounced 12 minutes from time to win it.
But there was still one more twist of the knife for England as the usually-reliable Kane skied a late penalty over the bar uncharacteristically as we crashed out.
PSR boost
As quoted in The Chronicle, he added: “We’re into a new PSR cycle and we are having those discussions.
“Paul Mitchell has come onboard and it is for him and Eddie to discuss what sort of targets they want and the areas they want to strengthen.
“It’s then important to have those meetings to decide where we are going to allocate those resources to strengthen our squad. That is what we are looking to do, but these situations are very fluid.
“On all of these things, we are compliant. We did what we needed to do.
“Going forward we are into a new cycle and we do not want to be leaving ourselves in that situation again in such tight circumstances.
“With all of these things, that deadline is needed for the whole market to focus minds and get those deals done.
Southgate's gone - now it's time to go foreign
By Dave Kidd
There is a natural preference to appoint an English successor.
And in an ideal world, the England manager should always be English. But this is not an ideal scenario.
So the FA must be ambitious in sounding out the best man for the job, regardless of nationality.
Because England need a manager who would gain instant respect with players, who would be tactically bold enough to take on Spain and a strong enough character to deal with Jude Bellingham’s Real Madrid Galactico status, which threatens to cause future issues within the England squad. Yes, when the FA have gone foreign in the past, it hasn’t worked out well.
Yet the problem with Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello was that neither had any previous involvement in English football.
They lacked knowledge and understanding of the football culture — indeed, Capello barely spoke the language.
Now there is a wealth of overseas managerial talent with significant Premier League experience, including Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Mauricio Pochettino, Carlo Ancelotti and Thomas Tuchel.
Read more from Dave Kidd on who England should turn to.
Howe has all his stars
“But coming out of it, from my perspective, PSR needs to be looked at because incentivising the selling of homegrown players is not a good protocol to have.
“We did not want to lose those players but again we had to do the deals we had to do to leave the squad in the best place possible for Eddie moving forward.”
And after keeping star names Bruno Guimaraes, Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon and with last summer’s big-money arrival Sandro Tonali due to return from his betting ban, Eales is confident that Howe and new sporting director Mitchell can enhance the squad even further.
He added: “With Bruno, Isak, Gordon, Joelinton and Tonali to come back, we’ve got Lloyd Kelly coming in as an addition already, Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento, we’ve got the squad to kick on.
“But we are always looking to add to that and that is the challenge now, that is what we need to do, we need to find ways to improve and that is what we are doing with Eddie and Paul.”
Southgate statement in full as he QUITS England
As a proud Englishman, it has been the honour of my life to play for England and to manage England. It has meant everything to me, and I have given it my all.
But it’s time for change, and for a new chapter. Sunday’s final in Berlin against Spain was my final game as England manager.
I joined the FA in 2011, determined to improve English football. In that time, including eight years as England men’s manager, I have been supported by some brilliant people who have my heartfelt thanks.
I could not have had anyone better alongside me than Steve Holland. He is one of the most talented coaches of his generation, and has been immense.
I have had the privilege of leading a large group of players in 102 games. Every one of them has been proud to wear the three lions on their shirts, and they have been a credit to their country in so many ways.
The squad we took to Germany is full of exciting young talent and they can win the trophy we all dream of.
I am so proud of them, and I hope we get behind the players and the team at St. George’s Park and the FA who strive every day to improve English football, and understand the power football has to drive positive change.
My special thanks go to the backroom staff who have provided the players and me with unstinting support over the last eight years. Their hard work and commitment inspired me every day, and I am so grateful to them – the brilliant ‘team behind the team’.
We have the best fans in the world, and their support has meant the world to me. I’m an England fan and I always will be.
I look forward to watching and celebrating as the players go on to create more special memories and to connect and inspire the nation as we know they can.
Thank you, England – for everything.