Howe and Gordon make laughable three-word vow as Newcastle problems ‘nothing to do with me’ again
“There was no commitment and I blame the players for that. It was nothing to do with me,” was how Ruud Gullit once reacted to the intrinsically upsetting experience of being beaten by Spurs.
Less than three weeks later, he took “full responsibility for the results” before citing “harassment to my family in Holland” and an “intrusion” into his “private life” for his decision to step down as Newcastle manager.
“When things like this happen it means I haven’t done my job properly. I’m in charge, so it’s all my fault, not the fault of anyone else,” he added.
A defeat to Sunderland, for which he dropped Duncan Ferguson and – arguably slightly more controversially – Alan Shearer, proved too much to overcome.
There was no such back-breaking selection straw from Eddie Howe at the weekend; neither Joelinton nor Harvey Barnes seem particularly likely to have stormed into the manager’s office on Monday morning for anything approaching a confrontation. But the result and performance drew a similar line in the sand for many who now feel Howe must go.
It was insipid, uninspired, entirely spiritless. Sunderland were not great but they at least turned up at the Stadium of Light. After the game, Howe was made to answer questions about, essentially, whether the players realised the magnitude of the match – or even cared.
He inevitably took “full accountability” and issued apologies but the increase in deaf ears upon which they will fall across Tyneside this season has been noticeable. Newcastle have been dreadfully inconsistent and only so often can the manager express fury while shouldering all the blame when history repeats itself with the same players.
He had “to be very worried about my words because I’m very angry with the performance,” he said after the Sunderland game, with similar sentiments underpinning the defeats to Brentford and West Ham last month.
That week-long nadir and subsequent international break sparked an upturn of sorts with a four-game unbeaten run, but this was as bad as anything Newcastle have served up in months.
Two shots on target in a bitter derby, the Premier League’s first in close to a decade, both from range, was as miserable a return as it was entirely predictable.
The belief, articulated by both Howe and Anthony Gordon, that Newcastle can “make it right” in their next game sums up part of the problem. A win at home to Fulham on Wednesday would prolong their Carabao Cup defence into at least the semi-finals, but surrendering at Sunderland leaves scars much deeper than a single win in another competition can properly treat.
Newcastle under Howe even at their worst could at least be relied upon to run, to tackle, to care, to compete. That team, those players, that manager and that mindset has been painfully absent this season.
As much as that hurts against a Bournemouth or a Brighton, it does not compare to the pain and embarrassment of falling behind promoted Sunderland in the space of one summer.
That defeat and display was simply confirmation of what many already suspected at Newcastle: they are the little brothers again. They cannot “make that right” in one game which matters considerably less to the fans.
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