‘Eddie will do anything to be there’ – Newcastle United boss unleashes secret weapons

Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe has been able to count on a group of trusted staff to maintain the Magpies’ push for a place in the Champions League

This is a scenario even the meticulous Eddie Howe could never have imagined. However, the manner in which Howe’s trusted staff have stepped up in his absence won’t have come as a surprise to him after the Newcastle United boss was hospitalised with pneumonia.

Howe has been incredibly hands-on at Newcastle, but the Magpies head coach has long recognised that he only has one voice and that there is only so much a single person can do with 20-odd players on a given day. To have a whole team of coaches to split players into units, to take them aside for individual work, to drive home his message, has been crucial since the 47-year-old took charge. Influential assistant Graeme Jones calls it ‘gang coaching’.

Howe remains a colossal miss – a number of current players had never seen him sit out a training session, let alone a game – but the Newcastle boss has put systems and processes in place in recent years to leave the group in no doubt of what is expected of them. Howe is also safe in the knowledge that his staff will continue to drive those aforementioned standards in his absence as Steve Fletcher, a close friend, ex-coaching colleague and former team-mate, made clear.

“Eddie will do anything to be there,” he explained to ChronicleLive. “He’s just that way inclined, but he trusts everybody in the management team.