To damn Eddie Howe as a villain is a hard sell, the 45-year-old being one of the most liked and likeable individuals in football.
The manner in which he defied the football odds by guiding Bournemouth from the fourth tier all the way through to the Premier League, across two long stints on the south coast, was little short of remarkable, while not for him are the tantrums and toxicity that have become commonplace in technical areas up and down the country.
Rather, he is always measured, courteous, and just fundamentally nice.
Which is great, if you like that sort of thing, and by and large a good dose of decency is a welcome tonic in a profession that has gone to the dogs in recent years.
With the weight of the world on their shoulders, modern-day managers have become sour and on occasion turn nasty, too prone to histrionics and too often using the fourth official as a human piñata to relieve their stress.
Howe doesn’t do that. He would never do that. The first top-flight gaffer to take a pay cut during Covid is a gentleman amongst a gallery of rogues.
Yet, as laudable as all this is, could a counter-claim be made that Edward John Frank Howe is more than a touch… deathly boring?
Granted, we have veered too far towards celebrating ‘personality managers’ in the Premier League era, and then excusing them for all kinds of atrocious behaviour, and this has played out most pertinently in the veneration of Jose Mourinho, an outright rotter of a man.
But at least these touchline moaners with arrested development get us talking. They stir our emotions. They’re box-office. Whereas if Howe was on the big screen no doubt it would be a dry public information film stating the importance of filling in your tax return on time.
He is a manager designed by committee, stripped of the edges that make a man interesting, instead all veneer and no substance, or rather the substance – containing anger, humour, and irrational thought, all the things that make us whole - has been buried deep down, hidden from view.
Which is precisely what a psychopath does, but Howe is far too mundane to ever be a psychopath.
He is the human personification of Charlton Athletic in the 2000s. Always sensible, annoyingly so. This in itself is not enough to warrant villain status, however. Not even close.
But then, in November 2021, Howe joined Newcastle United who had recently been taken over by a Saudi-led consortium and with widespread concerns about the increasing proliferation of state-backed clubs, and with even graver concerns about the appalling human rights record in Saudi Arabia, Howe has been asked for his thoughts on these matters. And each time he has demurred.
Now, of course, nobody is expecting the manager of Newcastle United to strongly criticise his employers, while a modicum of sympathy is afforded Howe for his compromised position in this regard.
Even so, to repeatedly claim he is not fully unaware of the broader political issues and as stonewall as he does – he being just a basic football man and all – amounts to a cowardly tactic. It’s an intelligent man insulting our intelligence.
Because what’s the betting that beneath his affable veneer, this villain in sheep’s clothing, is just as appalled, and just as concerned, as the rest of us?
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
