Eddie Howe: How His Newcastle Exit Echoes Leaving Bournemouth

**Eddie Howe** (0:02)
I think it was time, yeah. I think I knew that season that it had taken every ounce of energy out of me to try and keep the team up. And yeah, that's sort of a moment in my head that I just knew. It's a hard decision with Football Usual Life and also their club, you know, Bournemouth was my life. But I always felt in my heart that I had to do what was right for Bournemouth, not for me.
I would not have been the manager that Bournemouth needed me to be. I just needed to get away.

**Damian Hughes** (0:30)
Eddie Howe has stepped away from Newcastle United after nearly five years in charge, first major trophy for the club in 70 years, Champions League football twice and then after what he called a period of personal reflection, he's decided it's time to go. When Jake and I sat down with Eddie back in 2022, he'd just taken the job. But before it, he'd left Bournemouth after relegation. And he told us something that most managers never actually say out loud, that it felt a little bit like grief, that he mourned it like it was a failure, and the pressure he carried was never coming from the crowd or the board, it was entirely his own.
He also told us about missing his mum in the final few months because he was too busy managing a football club to be there at her side, and it's a regret he's carried ever since. Knowing what we know now, this conversation hits a little bit differently. Here's Eddie Howe in his own words on what this job actually costs and how do you know when it's time to walk away.

**Eddie Howe** (1:36)
The first thing I did when we got relegated was sort of mourn and sort of grieve that thing that had happened, that failure in my eyes. And it took me a period to sort of come out of that malaise that was in for a while. And then immediately I was like, right, I want to analyse what happened and sort of look at myself and go, right, how can I come back? A much better version of the manager that's just left the game.
And part of my learning then was to go and listen to your podcast, which I've never really heard of. I stumbled across it and I was hooked straight away. I was like, these are amazing. And you were both amazing. And I wanted to reach out and just tell you that you'd really help me in that in that period.

**Jake Humphrey** (2:14)
So can we go in then to that period that you spent out of the game that year out of the game? You've come with some notes, right? I asked you, I reached out and asked whether you wouldn't mind just coming with five of your biggest lessons from that time out of the game and how they sit with you now. So how should we start this?

**Eddie Howe** (2:29)
Yeah, well, I think just I didn't have a plan. So as I said, I'd come out of that thing, the failure, the relegation and thought, right, how did that happen? What did I do wrong? I'm very honest and open with myself. And I asked people that I know to sort of critique me and give me feedback. And I did it myself as well. And I thought, these are the areas that I think I need to improve. And how do I go about doing that? And part of that was education. So improving me was a big part of what I had to do.
I'd just gone through a really intense period. I don't know how long it was, 12 years in management where you don't get time to even blink. So you're working, you're reacting, you're planning, preparing, you're not sort of investing in yourself and working on any potential weaknesses that you might have.

**Jake Humphrey** (3:23)
What did you find then?

**Eddie Howe** (3:25)
Well, I looked at it and thought that there's definite things that I had neglected through work that I had to really, really focus on. So my body of work that existed was all on in books.
So I had a tower of diaries where I'd put every training session, recorded it and that was it. That was my body of work. So if you had asked me a question on how do you deal with problem players or how do you deal with this situation that occurs in your job, I wouldn't have been able to give you an answer.

**Jake Humphrey** (3:57)
Really?

**Eddie Howe** (3:58)
Well, yeah, because it would have been in here, but it wouldn't have necessarily been something that I could refer to or a body of work behind it. So I spent hour after hour after hour in my study, digesting all my training sessions, coding them, putting them into groups. And that just happened by chance. I just started fiddling around and then I was like, I've got to get this done.