Eddie Howe relishing selection dilemmas as Newcastle prepare for packed season
Newcastle boss Eddie Howe (centre) is relishing the tough selections decisions he will have to make this season (Owen Humphreys/PA)
Newcastle boss Eddie Howe is relishing the dilemma of having to disappoint players as he attempts to negotiate a path through a season which could see his squad stretched to its limits.
The 45-year-old left summer signings Harvey Barnes and Tino Livramento, as well as last season’s top scorer Callum Wilson, sitting on the bench for Saturday’s Premier League opener, but saw Wilson and Barnes come on and score in a 5-1 demolition of Aston Villa.
Howe admitted in the run-up to the game that he had “five or six” difficult decisions to make in the light of a fresh £125million spending spree, Anthony Gordon’s pre-season form and the emergence of homegrown midfielder Elliot Anderson, but that is a problem he welcomes with a Champions League campaign looming.
He said: “They’re dilemmas that are needed because we’re going to need the strongest squad possible, and the players who missed out today will play loads of games this season.
“That’s just a fact because we’re in so many different competitions, we’re going to be stretched and we’ll also be needing their quality as well.
“It’s going to be nice to be able to make those decisions. We need the strongest bench we can get this year with the amount of games we’re going to have, the amount of competitions we’re in.
“It was certainly a difficult day yesterday to name the team. They weren’t easy decisions for me to make – decisions I had to make, of course, being in my position – and then you just hope the team performs and you get the benefit of that squad.”
One of those decisions saw Howe hand a debut to £52m former AC Milan midfielder Sandro Tonali,
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