\n<\/p>\n
This is a mess that, in many ways, Howe will be happy to leave behind, having been left in an impossible position.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite supposedly being at the helm of a club that aspires to win the Premier League, he has had to sit by and watch his squad be picked apart over the course of the past 12 months while standards have dipped on the pitch, shorn of his best players at a time where the club should have been consolidating and building on what he had achieved.<\/span><\/p>\n Howe, though, can leave with his head held high. He will always be regarded as a club legend after a five-year stay during which he made the Toon Army dream again by delivering Champions League football and that first major trophy in 70 long years.<\/span><\/p>\n “Thank you to Eddie for what he’s given us,” <\/span>Shearer said via Betfair after news emerged of the coach’s imminent departure<\/span>. “He gave me my best day as a Newcastle fan with that day at Wembley. He’s given us some incredible nights in the Champions League that we’ll never ever forget.<\/span><\/p>\n “It’s been an incredible ride. I think the job that he did was unbelievable from where he took us when he came, there was a real threat of relegation. He steadied the ship.<\/span><\/p>\n “I’ve been to Wembley as a player and lost. I’ve been to Wembley as a fan and lost. But I’ve also had the pleasure of going to Wembley and winning thanks to Eddie. Whatever happens now, the Geordies will always be grateful for what he gave us that day.”<\/span><\/p>\n There will certainly be no bad blood towards him from the fervent fanbase, who will now have to follow their team into the unknown under incoming head coach Matthias Jaissle, who inherits a squad that looks ill prepared for a Premier League campaign with a little over three weeks before the season begins.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a mess that, in many ways, Howe will be happy to leave behind,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}