Eddie Howe’s future has come under scrutiny after Newcastle’s damaging defeat at Crystal Palace
11:08, 14 Apr 2026Updated 11:30, 14 Apr 2026
Simon Jordan
Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United reign has ‘the feeling of it coming towards the end’, but he hasn’t been helped by the public comments of the club’s chief executive officer David Hopkinson.
That was the blunt verdict of former Crystal Palace owner and talkSPORT pundit Simon Jordan who believes Howe has always been a ‘gatekeeper’ in his post as Magpies boss.
The pressure has ramped up on Howe after Sunday’s 2-1 defeat at Crystal Palace left Newcastle languishing in 14th place in the Premier League table. It follows on from the comments made by Hopkinson during the international break where he refused to give any assurances over the manager’s position.
While there is no doubt the job Howe has done at Newcastle – leading the club to two Champions League qualifications in three seasons and a first trophy win for 55 years – has been transformational, he is now facing serious question marks over his future after a difficult Premier League campaign.
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Newcastle blew another lead at Selhurst Park and have lost 25 points from winning positions this season. The trends are alarming and Jordan feels like Howe is coming towards the end of his time at the club.
“It has the feeling of it coming towards the end there,” Jordan told talkSPORT. “Not because I want him to (be sacked), not because I think it merits it. I think what the CEO said the other day was just absurd. He’s the manager at this time and there was no real support.
“There was no need to volunteer the kind of information that he said about Eddie Howe. He could have kept it to himself and had no opinion on it whatsoever. I’m paraphrasing it inaccurately, but it was more cutting in terms of people being able to read between the lines.
“You look at them. You take [Alexander] Isak out of their side, they don’t score enough goals, [Bruno] Guimaraes is not fit at the moment, [Sandro] Tonali is going to be sold. What do you do? Answer the question. What do you do if you’re in Newcastle?”
Jordan was cutting on the ambiguity of David Hopkinson’s comments during the international break, with the Magpies CEO insisting he had no stance on Howe’s future right now and would revisit it at the end of the season.
Newcastle United CEO David Hopkinson and head coach Eddie Howe(Image: Newcastle United via Getty Images)
“What’s that? What kind of observation is that? You don’t have a stance on the most important football decision,” he raged. “That’s not me wishing for him to be sacked or wanting him to be. I don’t want that for him.
“The challenge is that the expectation of Newcastle is beyond the ability. When you’ve got people turning around consistently saying, ‘We’ve got a project for 2030, we want to win the Premier League by 2030’ and not telling you how they are going to do it.
“Out goes Isak, out goes Tonali, the best players are sold because they can’t be kept. Not because the club can’t keep them and can’t match their wages it is because the players themselves want to leave to join a bigger club that is ultimately achieving that success now.
“That’s why I’ve always said, not because of Eddie Howe, that he’ll be a gatekeeper. Unless there’s going to be a change of approach from Newcastle, unless there’s going to be a revenue generation model, like a stadium that’s going to give them the opportunity to bridge the £300million gap between those that have it already and the ones that they’re trying to emulate.
“How are they going to change it?”
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