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Eddie Howe has left his role as Newcastle United head coach, ending a tenure of nearly five years. The 48-year-old has chosen to step away and take a break from football, with Sky Sports reporting that the club tried to persuade him to stay before accepting his decision.
A squad Being Picked Apart
The decision is understood to have followed discussions with the club’s hierarchy over recent days, though Howe had set a possible exit in motion a couple of weeks earlier.
A summer of heavy sales weighed on his thinking. Sandro Tonali left for Tottenham Hotpsur in a deal worth up to £100 million and Anthony Gordon joined Barcelona for close to £70 million, following the British-record £125 million sale of Alexander Isak to Liverpool last year. Uncertainty over captain Bruno Guimaraes added to the sense of a team being dismantled.
One of the Club’s Greatest Managers
Howe took charge of the club in the November of 2021, with Newcastle in the relegation zone, and transformed their fortunes. He led them back into the Champions League through top-five finishes and, in the March of 2025, ended the club’s wait of more than fifty years for a major trophy by winning the League Cup. Last season, Newcastle reached the Champions League knockout stage for the first time before losing to Barcelona, even as their league form slipped to a disappointing 12th-place finish.
I felt like the end of the season was the right time to change manager, but was fully behind Eddie for the season starting, hoping he could turn things round. The timing of this is very very strange.
Eddie Howe will go down as a club legend and the greatest #NUFC manager of my lifetime. Thank you
— Scott Daley (@scottdaley86.bsky.social) 30 July 2026 at 10:09
Al-Ahli’s Matthias Jaissle is the favourite to succeed him, with Sky Sports reporting that talks are at an advanced stage. The 38-year-old German coaches one of four clubs owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which also owns Newcastle, making any move an easy one to carry out. Kieran McKenna and Antonio Conte were among the other names on the shortlist. Whoever takes over inherits a talented but unsettled squad and the sizeable task of following one of the most successful managers in Newcastle’s modern history.