Newcastle now top the Premier League for one statistic that fans will absolutely love

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Eddie Howe is not just building a strong squad for the future but he’s doing it in a way that Newcastle United fans will absolutely love.

Way back when Sir John Hall was the owner at Newcastle he said he dreamt of the day that Newcastle could field a team of 11 geordies.

Now it looks like Eddie Howe has a similar dream.

Howe has recruited brilliantly but also very wisely

While Howe has recruited brilliantly bringing in the likes of Bruno Guimaraes, Alexander Isak, Sven Botman, Sandro Tonali, Kieran Trippier, Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes there has also been a strong focus on bringing in players who know what it means to represent the club.

Howe relies a lot on the likes of Sean Longstaff and Jacob Murphy who were maybe deemed to not be good enough in the days of Steve Bruce, but Howe has turned them both into important players.

He has also given youngsters Elliot Anderson and Lewis Miley their time to shine and in terms of recruitment he has brought in Dan Burn and Lewis Hall, and this summer he opted to keep Mark Gillespie and Paul Dummett around too.

The thing that all these players have in common? All of them are boyhood Newcastle fans. They know what it means to play for the club, they understand the love and the obsession that the fans show and that knowledge and passion is invaluable.

Newcastle have more boyhood fans in their squad than any other PL side

That’s eight players in the first-team squad now who are Newcastle fans which sits them above Arsenal at the top of the table of clubs with boyhood fans. Arsenal currently have seven fans in their squad according to The Athletic. However, with Emil Smith-Rowe being offered around by his agent, it could soon go down to six.

Newcastle and Eddie Howe should be able to take full advantage that passion. We’ve seen how vocal Dan Burn can be and how much making the Carabao Cup final meant to him and Sean Longstaff. You can’t buy that type of passion and you can’t fake it or manufacture it.

Howe has said that he feels it’s important to have those types of players in the squad, but with eight fans in the side, he’s clearly leaning heavily into it, whether that’s a conscious effort or not, I’m here for it.