Embarrassing Journalist trolling Newcastle United fans about Eddie Howe – Usual suspect | OneFootball

When it comes to journalists trolling Newcastle United fans, they don’t come much more embarrassing than Miguel Delaney.

Earlier this week we had one of the other usual suspects having a go, Tariq Panja of the New York Times.

Now it is the turn (again!) of Miguel Delaney, who has plenty of previous ‘form’, when it comes to going up against Newcastle United fans.

The Twitter conversation following on from the above…

Dean:

‘Had we spent 90mil in the summer and nowt in January would you still have same opinion?

When the money is spent is completely irrelevant.

The investment was needed, the squad stagnated and receded under Bruce.

Look at Bruce’s WBA.’

Miguel Delaney:

‘I don’t think Bruce is a good manager…

But what does it say, then, even Bruce regularly had the pre-Saudi squad at 12th/13th?’

Dean:

‘Individual professional desire to do well for the club despite being managed by a clown maybe?

That can only last so long.

The squad wasn’t as bad as Bruce made them look.’

Miguel Delaney:

‘And your last sentence is precisely why I don’t think Howe’s job was as impressive as some make out. It was a mid-table squad.’

Dean:

‘That’s ludicrous Miguel.’

Geordie in Yorkshire:

‘This is such a bizarre take. He’s led nufc to top four form since the turn of the year with, as you say, a mid table squad. It’s just plain strange that you don’t give him credit for that. One could be forgiven for thinking you’ve got an alternative agenda.’

Miguel Delaney:

‘it’s not ludicrous at all, tho. It’s the standard of the squad. They were just undercoached by a manager out of step with the game. I didn’t say Howe did a bad job, I said it’s not *that* impressive in context

And again: no one in the bottom half, in history, spent 100m in Jan.’

Matthew Hunter:

‘1 win in 19 doesn’t show a mid-table team. Saying Howe didn’t do a remarkable job is ridiculous. Yes money was sent but what about the players that improved massively under Howe or does that not fit your agenda against Newcastle.’

Miguel Delaney:

‘No, the previous two seasons show a mid-table squad. The Bruce era – and I don’t think he was a good manager – had unravelled, though, hence the squad was badly underperforming. That happens (see Mourinho’s champions in 2015-16).’

Gallowgate Tweets:

‘Maybe tell a few of you mates that Miguel as we were constantly told by 90% of the British football media that it was a Sunday league team that Steve Bruce was working miracles with.’

Andy Ives:

‘Miguel if you had watched us play regularly in either of Bruce’s 2 full seasons, you would know it was a minor miracle we finished mid table in either. This season his luck ran out. Eddie’s achievements are stellar compared.’

Oinkbaamoo:

‘Miguel, Why was a “mid-table squad” bottom of the table with no wins in first 14 games? Why was that squad odds-on to be relegated when Howe took over?’

Monkey B:

‘Finishing mid-table isn’t the massively impressive thing that Howe should be lauded for, it’s the form to get them there from bottom of the table. It’s top 5 form with, as you say, a mid-table team. Impressive either way.’

Graeme Parker:

‘A mid table squad that effectively gave everyone else a 20+ point headstart and gained unprecedentedly under Howe.’

In an attempt to provoke Newcastle United fans and just continuing to have a go generally, refusing to give Eddie Howe proper credit has become an increasingly popular line from the likes of Miguel Delaney.

This is the Premier League form of the top 12 in the Premier League, when it comes to the last four months and 17 games each.

The clubs are listed as per the current Premier League placings, with the number of points from their last 17 games first, then afterward the results they have had:

40 Man City (Won 12 Drawn 4 Lost 1)

47 Liverpool (Won 15 Drawn 2 Lost 0)

29 Chelsea (Won 8 Drawn 5 Lost 4)

32 Tottenham (Won 10 Drawn 2 Lost 5)

31 Arsenal (Won 10 Drawn 1 Lost 6)

26 Man Utd (Won 7 Drawn 5 Lost 5)

22 West Ham (Won 6 Drawn 4 Lost 7)

20 Wolves (Won 6 Drawn 2 Lost 9)

23 Leicester (Won 6 Drawn 5 Lost 6)

20 Brighton (Won 5 Drawn 5 Lost 7)

23 Brentford (Won 7 Drawn 2 Lost 8)

34 Newcastle United (Won 11 Drawn 1 Lost 5)

As you can see Eddie Howe’s Newcastle have won more points (these past four months / seventeen games), many more in many cases, than all in the top twelve, apart from the current best two clubs in the world.

Howe hasn’t just kept Newcastle United up, he has done it in a ridiculously good fashion.

To not be willing to acknowledge that, is simple humiliating for a journalist like Delaney who obviously has such a high opinion of himself. Although sadly he is not alone in this…amongst the media determined to deny the reality whenever it comes to anything positive regarding Newcastle United.

Yes NUFC spent £85m (Bruno £35m, Burn £13m, Trippier £12m, Wood £25m, Targett loan) in January 2022, with any other payments mainly reliant on whether or not Newcastle United stayed up, such as an extra £6.25m due to Lyon for Bruno.

It wasn’t £100m as Miguel Delaney claims, it was around £85m plus potential add-ons, those add-ons almost entirely depending on Newcastle staying up. A very sensible approach to what was an extremely difficult situation, that the club’s owners and head coach found themselves in, when we got to January 2022.

The thing is as well, it is fine for fans to pick and choose their ‘facts’ when arguing with each other, however, any decent level journalist has a duty to be objective, they can’t just ignore any problematic facts that undermine their lame attacks on Newcastle United and the fans.

As fans reacted to Delaney above, Mike Ashley and Steve Bruce had left an absolute shambles behind them, Bruce getting incredible luck in so many games to sneak undeserved victories where Newcastle had been very much second best.

Newcastle supporters could see this was a team / squad very much in decline, at least under Steve Bruce. Increasingly demoralised and lacking focus / direction, the writing had been on the wall for some time. Under Rafa Benitez, he’d created a cheap and cheerful but very organised and disciplined defence who conceded only 47 and 48 goals in his two full PL seasons with NUFC, each of those two seasons only six clubs conceded less goals than Newcastle. Under Steve Bruce that became 58 and 62 conceded and with 19 leaked in Bruce’s first eight games of this current NUFC season, clearly it was getting even worse.

Plus, when Miguel Delaney talks about a ‘mid-table squad’ it is not true in many ways, in particular, those last two seasons of survival and finishing 12th and 13th had been massively dependent on a small group of players, NOT the squad. Such an unbalanced squad, where if key players were injured for any length of time, the quality of the replacement massively dropped.

Which brings us to some specifics about the January 2022 window that Miguel Delaney very much doesn’t want to acknowledge, when he wants to claim his very simple narrative of Newcastle United buying supposedly guaranteed safety with a £100m (according to him) mid-season spend, with Eddie Howe supposedly doing little more than driving the bus.

When it came to goals this season, due to the ridiculous neglect of Ashley and Bruce, Newcastle United were all but completely reliant on Callum Wilson. Howe’s first game in charge was 20 November 2021 and on 27 December 2021 (five days before the transfer window opened) Wilson was effectively ruled out of the rest of the relegation fight with an injury against Man Utd. Left with no Premier League level replacement in the squad, Eddie Howe and the club’s owners were forced to make the very pragmatic decision to spend £25m on Chris Wood. This signing would NEVER have happened without Wilson’s injury but it was was one that had to be made, clubs aren’t in the habit of selling their best strikers mid-season with no chance of an immediate suitable replacement, so  the hard working but limited Wood was brought in to do a job. A job that has seen a lot of essential hard work but only two goals contributed to the safety initiative. Plus, Newcastle were only able to buy Wood due to a release clause.

It is also a very inconvenient fact for Delaney, that the two January signings who have been by a massive distance the biggest factor in terms of new boy contributions, are Burn and Targett, a £13m January buy and a loan. Two signings that brought much derision Newcastle’s way from the media and rival fans.

It is also very much not to be mentioned by our esteemed journalist friend that Kieran Trippier only completed three Premier League games before picking up an injury that like Wilson, ruled him out of the rest of the relegation fight.

Then we have Bruno Guimaraes.

A class act BUT a class act who like pretty much every other young player arriving from a far weaker league, needs time to adjust to the Premier League. Eddie Howe felt he had to wait and before Bruno made his first start on 10 March 2022, Howe had somehow roused his (almost entirely pre-January players) into a run of six games where they had won five and drawn one to magically rise up out of the relegation zone.

Bruno has undoubtedly then played a major role in the relative success since BUT interesting to note still, he didn’t start a game at St James Park until 8 April 2022, only 43 days ago! I think Burn and Targett were the icing on the safety cake, whilst Bruno has been the bonus cherry on top of that icing.

When you scrape even just a little bit beneath the surface, you also have to accept that by far Newcastle’s most creative player has been missing for pretty much the entire post-January transfer window. Allan Saint-Maximin didn’t start any games between 13 February and 3 April, then to put it kindly, he has been pretty much missing since his return from illness / injury as he has struggled for form and fitness. That game against Arsenal on Monday night, probably the first game since the start of February when ASM has looked relatively like his old self.

In effect, this four months / seventeen games period that has seen Eddie Howe unbelievably turn around Newcastle’s fortunes, has been achieved almost entirely without three (Trippier, ASM, Wilson) of Newcastle’s best handful of players and another in Bruno, who effectively has only influenced the second half of that survival bid from mid-January.

Imagine what Eddie Howe might have achieved if all of that quartet had been fully fit and available for this seventeen match run. Which is of course what the likes of Miguel Delaney is afraid of and why Newcastle fans have every right to be getting excited about what potentially could happen next season.

We had a glimpse of it maybe on Monday night, absolutely dominating Arsenal for the 90 minutes and it could and should have been 3-0 or 4-0, the Gunners got lucky. That game saw Wilson back in the starting eleven, Bruno blooming and ASM something like back on form…maybe no coincidence.

Start of next season…a team including fully fit and raring to go Wilson, Bruno, Joelinton, ASM, Trippier, Targett (loan made permanent deal has to happen), Burn and Dubravka (or another quality keeper coming in), plus another three or more first team signings made this summer?

Eddie Howe has done an absolutely stunning job so far, so watch out Miguel Delaney, as we wait to see just what this young and talented English coach might be capable of when in August he could have a far more formidable armoury at his disposal.