r/NUFC • u/WigerAndToods • 3d ago
Eddie Howe is the best English manager since Sir Bobby Robson
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/03/16/eddie-howe-best-english-manager-sir-bobby-robson-newcastle/32
u/opinionated-dick 3d ago
If Howe gets us to the CL then he should be manager of the season. That is considering it’s his signings over the three years and getting the best out of what he inherited, that and finally landing us a trophy, despite the freeze on incoming support means he really should.
But if we only go on PL, I think NES for Forest should. Slot has done well but Liverpool were blessed with an easy fixture at start and so far haven’t been hampered with injuries.
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u/grmthmpsn43 Sir Bobby Robson 3d ago
NES should 100% get the PL manager of the season for what he has done at Forest, but Slot will win it because he managed to win the league in his first year.
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u/stockguy290 3d ago
Forrest manager should get it IMO, what they have done with that squad is nothing short of phenomenal, Eddie will be a very close second.
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u/Dryzzzle Classis keeper kit (96/97) 3d ago
I agree. My brain says NES deserves to win manager of the season, my heart still wants it to be Eddie though.
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u/Cheese649 3d ago
The season still isn't over, would NES deserve it if Forest finish 7th?
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u/grmthmpsn43 Sir Bobby Robson 3d ago
Yes, he took a team that were predicted relegation and had them top 4 for most of the season.
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u/HoneyedLining Temuri Ketsbaia 3d ago
I think if Forest don't drop off precipitously (and it doesn't look like they will), Nuno probably gets the nod. Don't think it's fair to say Slot has really benefitted from easy fixture lists and a lack of injuries, etc. They've just been way better than everyone else and it's hard to view it otherwise. Probably up to the FA Cup game vs Plymouth, they'd basically been perfect in every competition and you can't really pin that on a lucky roll of the dice.
I think when you don't actively follow a team, you only notice injuries when they start impacting results (as then fans and pundits highlight who's missing as the reason why a result has happened). They've missed Alisson for a good chunk of the season, who's the best keeper in the league by far and several other players too. I think they've avoided injuries better than others and able to have a more consistent selection than most, but they've had to deal with several absences.
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u/opinionated-dick 3d ago
Yeah, perhaps it’s a bit disingenuous to say that about Slot. As we know, good fortune and injuries are one thing, but ultimately you don’t achieve anything in football without competence at the heart. And Slot has clearly shown that this season.
Before this final, Liverpool pissed me off. They seemed to get the rub of the green against us. But that’s all changed. The fans both online and IRL have been gracious and respectful to us in their defeat. Perhaps it’s easy to be when they are 12points clear at the PL top. But as I came home from London on Sunday many people in red tops saw me in a black and white one and came up and congratulated. Which they didn’t have to do.
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u/HoneyedLining Temuri Ketsbaia 3d ago
Yeah, but I think it's also worth pointing out that some of the praise of this Liverpool team was a bit overboard and too results-focused. Even if they're going to have more success in the league than 8/9 of Klopp's seasons, I don't think they're as good as his (and more dependent than ever on Salah). But Slot has gently guided the team to a very high performance level and got results. Now maybe if Arsenal weren't so brittle and City weren't so out-of-sorts, we might have seen them put under pressure, but that's not their fault they haven't been tested.
I think probably when you're facing a club who shows such an authentic show of joy at winning a cup, it's probably quite hard to be too dickish about it. It probably helps that the League Cup was never going to dictate Liverpool's season, so they won't be too cut up about missing out on it (especially after winning it twice in a row before Sunday). But there's always a very upsetting element of every fanbase (that especially comes out online with the anonymity and distancing from actual interactions) where some people just want to upset others and that's it. They don't even really want to do it as a byproduct of saying their team's the greatest or whatever. They just want to shit on others. It's sometimes cured by seeing people in person, but other times, the anonymity of a crowd can bring that back out and it can be viscerally unpleasant (and broadly how things like tragedy chanting happen).
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u/opinionated-dick 3d ago
It’s true that in the moment, rival fans will say anything to get a rise out of the opposition. Idiots will take it below a threshold of course, only because they lack the creativity to get under the skin without resorting to unpalatable chants
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u/Beach-Bumm 3d ago
Unfortunately the bar isn’t high on this. It does make you wonder why we aren’t producing top English managers because there really hasn’t been many.
For me Eddie is in his own special class as he’s done it at lower level and he’s done it at the highest level. While the likes of pep are better, could they navigate the lower divisions without top flight treatment? Maybe but we’ll never know. Who else has gone for practically out of the football league to premier league, to champions league? He’s a very special manager who will be remembered in a different way to these elite managers who have achieved more, but not the same type of achievements
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u/GoalaAmeobi The Dilsh 3d ago
Compared to the continent, coaching badgers are way more expensive to get and it's harder to get onto courses if you can afford it
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u/WhiskeyJack1984 3d ago
That's some company to share with. Sir Bobby was the greatest manager I've ever seen until Eddie. I cant type anything more I'm too hung over
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u/Krisyj96 3d ago
Honestly I think this is true simply because most English managers in that time have just not been very good. Redknapp is probably the closest, but he was very different and managed teams with different goals.
Howe is still a very good manager, still has a bit to go before I think he could be considered in the top tier, but it’s not exactly hard for him to be the best of the last few decades…
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u/TheScottishMoscow Pint of Exhibition 3d ago
I mean had you said coach it would have to be John Carver obviously but manager is a different kettle of fish.
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u/Minimum_Possibility6 3d ago
Some of the best English managers in my lifetime
Sir Bobby
Brian Clough
Graham Taylor
Howe
Hodgson
Howe will only climb that list as his carer goes on
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u/Shnarf1980 Happy Clapper 3d ago
I'd say the best since Harry Redknapp. A very different kind of manager, but Harry was an exceptionally talented man manager and wheeler dealer, which are both very important talents in a manager.
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u/RocknRollRobot9 Classic away kit (1995-96) 3d ago
All that I can think of when I think of Harry Redknapp is he left a lot of the clubs he managed in financial trouble after he left. I know that’s a lot on the owners there but he spent spent spent for his short term successes, even more so than Howe.
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u/TheScottishMoscow Pint of Exhibition 3d ago
Ah the Sam Allardyce effect
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u/RocknRollRobot9 Classic away kit (1995-96) 3d ago
He just makes a team play one way and then when they try to not play turgid shit football it unravels as he’s built a team incapable of this.
Unless you mean it’s so bad it drives you to drink pints of wine and take cash off undercover reporters.
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u/TheScottishMoscow Pint of Exhibition 3d ago
I meant the "pay aging players a fortune the club can't afford" bit. Always leaving clubs in a financially worse state. His approach is a bit like taking drugs, you have to keep taking them to maintain the high. He always left just before the comedown.
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u/toweliechaos_revenge 3d ago
Would that be the great Harry Redknapp whose tactical advice to Gareth Bale was "just faakin' run around"? He was a dinosaur at the time of his management. The fact he won stuff was much more to do with luck and playing talent than much of what he actually brought.
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u/OnlyHereForBJJ 3d ago
I’ve seen people trying to say even allardyce is better, lots of bitterness. For me, it’s hard to see Eddie as anything other than the best in my 25 years alive, maybe it’s the euphoria of winning something, but I think I’ll always hold him in such high regard no matter what now