Man Utd next manager: Eddie Howe delivers most comprehensive about his Newcastle United future yet
Next Manchester United manager: Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe has responded to calls for him to move to Old Trafford.
Manchester United are looking to appoint a new manager following the sacking of Ruben Amorim after less than 14 months in charge.
In that time, Amorim led Man United to their lowest-ever Premier League finish of 15th while also finishing runners-up to Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League.
The Red Devils currently sit sixth in the Premier League table, level on points with the Champions League positions, but the decision was made to relieve Amorim from his duties earlier this week.
Typically, Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe’s name has been floated as a potential permanent replacement for Amorim in the Old Trafford hot seat. Since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, the club have gone through 10 different managers.
Eddie Howe’s commitment to Newcastle United
Howe’s longevity has been a key characteristic of his managerial career so far as he currently sits as the Premier League’s fourth-longest-serving manager following his appointment at Newcastle in 2021. Prior to that, the 48-year-old spent eight years in his second spell at AFC Bournemouth.
Desptie a challenging first half to the 2025/26 season and speculation around the Manchester United job, Howe reaffirmed his commitment to Newcastle.
“Yeah, absolutely [committed],” he said. “Nothing has changed from my perspective. I'm 100% here, working as hard as I can, head down, ignoring all the stuff that you guys write, whether it's good or bad, because it's irrelevant.
“It's about today's work and trying to prepare the team as well as we can for Leeds. So, that will never change from my perspective.
“I think my commitment to my work and my job, as long as I'm happy and able to express myself in the best way that I can to help the team, nothing will change.”
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In his four years at Newcastle, Howe has led the club away from relegation danger, qualified for the Champions League twice, reached two Carabao Cup finals, ended a 70-year domestic trophy drought and currently has the side on the verge of Champions League progress as well as into another Carabao Cup semi-final.
“Longevity is such a strange one because I don't set out with time in mind, I set out to try and win games,” Howe added. “Just really the next game and then after that, the next game and the next game.
“So, you're working, I always find, week to week, game to game. But of course, you have to have a longer-term vision off the back of that.
“You have to plan well. You have to see what your team needs to look like in the future. You have to have good relationships with the people around you.
“Fundamentally, you have to have good relationships with the players. You have to care about the players and want them to do well on the football pitch. And I think sort of a mixture of all of those things has led me to this point now and my previous job as well.
“It feels more difficult to maybe stay in one place for a long period of time because I think attention spans and appetites for seeing the same person all the time seems to maybe be less attractive these days, I don’t know.
Howe also made a subtle reference to tensions behind the scenes with former sporting director Paul Mitchell back in the summer of 2024 in which he cast his future at the club into doubt.
But things have since changed and Howe admitted on Tuesday morning that nothing could tempt him to leave the club.
“No, not at this current time,” he claimed. “As I said, I think that the most important thing for me is happiness in the role, happiness in the job, the relationships that I have with the people around me now.That's not always been consistently good. So I think things can change at any football club. But at the moment, I'm very happy.
Howe continued: “For sure you have to evolve. But I think the game does that for you. I think the game is changing at such a quick pace.
“You have to evolve and you have to be flexible enough to evolve with the game. And you have to keep learning. I think that's the key thing from my perspective.
“I do think to a degree the game is always teaching me something new. But you've got to be very open to it and I consider myself and the staff very open to change and very open to seeing how we can improve for the future.”
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Four years at NUFC, four more?
After four years at Newcastle, Howe was asked whether he could do another four years with the club.
“Four more games!” Howe laughed. “Yeah, I don't tend to do that. I didn't do that from the minute I came in, really.
“I think when coming to the football club, I hoped for a sustained opportunity to do the job and to prove myself and to do the job that I thought I could do.
“But the first task was to stay in the league and we knew that if we didn't achieve that, then there wouldn't be a part two. And I think that's how it sort of works. You've got to keep hitting your objectives.
“You've got to keep hitting your targets stage by stage. And then if you're able to and you're enjoying it and people want you to stay, then you stay and you enjoy what's to come. So, four more years, I don't know.