What Eddie Howe is secretly thinking about Newcastle’s season now, he’d never admit it in public

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It continues to be a strange season for Newcastle United.

Eddie Howe’s side just about managed to get over the line in the FA Cup on Tuesday night thanks to a dramatic penalty shootout win away at Blackburn Rovers in which Martin Dubravka stepped up.

Newcastle are now into the quarter-finals and are just one game away from a potential return to Wembley. That should be a good thing and, broadly, it is. Still, the manner of the performance was hardly convincing.

Indeed, this was a team who towards the back end of 2023 beat Paris Saint-Germain, both Manchester clubs, Arsenal and Chelsea. In 2024, they have beaten high-flying Aston Villa and thrashed Sunderland in a morale-boosting derby win. Still, they remain maddeningly inconsistent, much to Howe’s annoyance.

Clearly, this season has been something of a reality check under the PIF ownership. Injuries have not helped of course, as well as big summer signing Sandro Tonali getting banned from football. That’s without even mentioning the FFP frustrations, too.

Howe has certainly had a lot to deal with and it seems the issues are on his mind.

Eddie Howe: What Newcastle boss privately thinks about this season

According to iNews., Howe’s case for being kept on long-term is that are good reasons for his team’s current malaise. He is thought to think lessons must be learnt from everything including summer recruitment and the conditioning of players returning from injury.

The report also adds that Howe is never likely to make a public statement in regards to those issues, which is hardly surprising. He is believed to be more than aware that making excuses in public will not help matters.

Eddie Howe future: Newcastle won’t rush decision

Way back in February 2022, Mehrdad Ghodoussi told The Athletic that he wanted Howe to be Newcastle’s version of Sir Alex Ferguson. Sacking him after one difficult season with a host of mitigating factors would hardly be conducive to that.

Howe has certainly earned that trust and it would be a major surprise to see him depart before the end of the season barring a major collapse.

Start next season poorly, however, and who knows if things will be different?