Stephen Warnock: Newcastle's Decision to Part Ways with Eddie Howe

Eddie Howe’s exit from Newcastle United was not an unavoidable casualty of a difficult summer, but a choice that set off a full-blown reset at St James’ Park. That is how former Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock sees it.

Since the end of the 2025-26 season, Newcastle have lost three pillars of Howe’s side: Anthony Gordon to Barcelona, Sandro Tonali to Tottenham and Bruno Guimaraes to Arsenal. Big names, big fees, big holes.

For Warnock, the first domino was the manager.

“Newcastle were the ones who chose to get rid of their manager this summer, in my opinion,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club. “They pushed Eddie Howe and gave him a decision to make.”

Warnock painted the picture of a coach boxed in by a club unwilling to fully back him in the market.

“If you don’t back your manager, they will be sitting there thinking: ‘Well, hang about, I need money to strengthen here and you are tying my hands around my back,’” he said. “The club didn’t need to do that, they left him with a decision to make about his future at the club.”

The upheaval has not stopped at the dugout. Newcastle’s midfield, once built around Tonali and Guimaraes, has been ripped apart. Gordon, a symbol of their new-era ambition, has gone too.

Warnock is adamant those exits were not forced on the club.

“Do people really think they didn’t want to lose Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes?” he asked. “Because I think they absolutely would’ve taken £100m. These haven’t been forced decisions.”

Across the studio, The Observer’s Rory Smith saw the summer from a different angle. He praised the way Newcastle have tried to hold their line amid the turbulence, even if they never planned for this level of change.

“What Newcastle have done, amid all of the change, has been really impressive, but it is reactive to a situation they maybe wouldn’t have chosen to be in at the start of summer,” Smith said.

On one key point, though, he broke sharply from Warnock.

“I disagree that they wanted to sell Tonali or Guimaraes,” Smith added. “If they could have kept those two players, they would have.”

Between Warnock’s view of a club willingly cashing in and Smith’s belief that Newcastle have been dragged into an unwanted rebuild, one truth is clear: the project on Tyneside no longer looks or feels like the one Howe walked into. The question now is whether this version can still match the ambition that transformed the place in the first place.