Eddie Howe says that Amanda Staveley’s vow to “win it all” at Newcastle United put him under unnecessary pressure as Newcastle United head coach.
Staveley, who was speaking in the direct aftermath of the Carabao Cup final defeat to Manchester United, told Talksport’s Jim White in a hospitality area of Wembley that the club would go on to win everything on the domestic front and the Champions League. But Howe’s follow up season to finishing fourth was a seventh-placed finish and this term has also been testing for the ex-Bournemouth boss.
Featuring on William Hill’s Up Front with Simon Jordan, a podcast hosted by the former Crystal Palace owner who speaks to sports stars and celebrities and challenges their opinions whilst scrutinising their careers, Howe said: “The vision is absolutely to win major trophies at Newcastle. That’s been made clear not just by Amanda Staveley, but by several other people at board level. There are big long-term ambitions and I think they understand now, with the rules that are in place, that they really are long-term rather than short-term.
“Her comments about wanting to win all these trophies obviously increases the pressure on me. Whenever those comments are made there is part of me that thinks to a degree, ‘I wish you hadn’t done that’. But that’s just Amanda, she’s so passionate. I can’t tell you how good she is for the football club and she’s so caring about the people at the club. I never think, ‘you shouldn’t have said that.’”
Staveley left the club’s board in the summer after a reshuffle which resulted in PIF upping their stake to 85%. Howe has also played down the fact that cash-laden owners PIF, based in Saudi Arabia, have unlimited funds.
“The fact that we’re the world’s richest club is something that has never been talked about internally,” said Howe. “The conversation has never been, ‘right, we’re the world’s richest club, how much money are we going to spend?’ We want to build Newcastle step-by-step; we want to do things in the right way, and we want to make good decisions for the club in both the short and long-term.
“There isn’t an endless pot of money. We have to make very good decisions when it comes to recruitment and we want to invest in the academy. The decision making from the leaders of the football club has been brilliant. The media have created the narrative around us being the richest club and that we’re going to go out and buy Lionel Messi. The reality has been so far from that.”
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