What Newcastle owners will also take into account behind the scenes

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Things are not going particularly well for Newcastle United right now.

While their away form has been pretty dismal all season with only one win on the road thus far, Newcastle hit a new low on Boxing Day.

They put in a performance labelled “shocking” by club legend Alan Shearer, losing by three goals to one to a team battling relegation despite taking the lead.

Eddie Howe’s side are in a miserable run of form and their next two games are huge. Liverpool at Anfield is a daunting prospect at the best of times even before taking into account this season’s away form while the trip to Sunderland in the FA Cup needs little more talking up.

Lose that and this season will be turning into nothing short of a disaster.

While Howe will seemingly be backed by the owners, there has been some insight into how PIF will judge things.

Eddie Howe: What PIF will judge Newcastle manager on

According to The Chronicle, the owners will not be basing any decision on Howe’s future (there is nothing to suggest he’s under pressure internally right now) purely on results.

Instead, they will also look at the manner of the performances from the team.

Eddie Howe: Newcastle boss needs improvement

Such has been the rapid-fire progression under Howe, it seems fair he’d get time to turn things around.

Back in February 2022, after all, Mehrdad Ghodoussi told The Athletic he wanted Howe to be PIF’s version of Sir Alex Ferguson.

Whether that is possible in the modern game is of course of debate but its certainly in keeping with their current thinking, if reports are to be believed.

What is obvious, however, is that more games like the Forest one cannot be accepted. There are ways to lose games and that was not one of them.

Avoid more performances like that and it seems there will be no knee-jerk reactions to this poor spell.