Tag teams and Trojan horses: Howe and Tindall tackle rule designed to split them up

How do you stop Newcastle United?

Premier League sides have been asking themselves this question for the past 12 months.

Play around their press if you dare. Stifle Bruno Guimaraes if you own a blanket. Off the pitch, seek to limit their commercial opportunities. Impose the so-called “Newcastle tax” on their transfers. Accuse them of time-wasting.

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But here’s a new one.

Newcastle buck a trend in the Premier League. During games, Eddie Howe prefers for Jason Tindall to join him on the touchline. Other clubs’ managers/head coaches largely stand alone.

The pair have a well-worn relationship going back to their decade together managing Bournemouth across two spells, with 19 months doing the same at Burnley in between — different watching briefs, different manners of addressing players, different ways of dealing with match officials.

In that sense, Tindall’s reputation perhaps unfairly precedes him. For the 2023-24 season, the Premier League has introduced a new rule — stating that “only one person can stand at the front of the technical area and coach during the match”. In images used to present the regulation, Tindall was the face of the campaign.

Yes, their assistant manager can have an abrasive relationship with fourth officials — but this feels like a direct response to Newcastle’s style of management.

Asked about the new regulations on Sunday, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said: “I think it is only for one team a real problem: Newcastle. Sorry!”

“It’s strange that it’s been brought in this season,” said Howe on Friday. “From our perspective, that’s a blow — we’ve just worked (together) naturally.

“I think there were a few comments about how we worked last year and I don’t know whether people have looked at that. It is what it is.”

Earlier in on Saturday, match officials did not intervene when Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta had two of his assistants in the technical area as they beat Nottingham Forest. So what treatment did Tindall and Howe receive during Newcastle’s 5-1 home win over Aston Villa in Saturday’s evening match?

Nobody puts Baby in a corner — but could they put Mad Dog in a kennel?

Howe got the first go on the touchline as the game kicked off.

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This felt natural — seniority at play. Howe was the older brother calling shotgun on the front passenger seat — it is not hard to imagine Tindall as the hyperactive younger sibling drumming on the headrest as he waits for his turn.

“I think he’ll feel a natural tendency to want to get forward, then be told he probably can’t,” Howe said, before jokingly adding: “We don’t want to see him get sent off, so we’ll have to try and get him chained to the dugout.”

And true to that, as Newcastle surged forward, so did their lead assistant. Tindall, a man you suspect is innately familiar with the rules of a WWE Tag Team bout, taps in for Howe after five minutes ahead of an attacking free kick.

This was a pattern repeated throughout — set pieces are Tindall’s domain. His hands were in his pockets and he looked faintly grumpy, like a donkey tied to a post in a field in the rain.

After nine minutes, with Newcastle 1-0 up through Sandro Tonali, Howe and Tindall decided to test the resolve of fourth official Graham Scott, stepping out together as Moussa Diaby burst forward for the visitors.

The pair work together because of their differences, fitting snugly together like finely-turned jointwork. Howe is not a natural rulebreaker. He surely sat at the front of the class in school. Tindall, in contrast, probably pushed more boundaries than Genghis Khan. But here the pair were, defying the Premier League diktat.

Villa assistant Pako Ayestaran stepped forward to complain. Having previously worked with Gary Neville, during the Manchester United stalwart turned Sky Sports pundit’s short, dismal spell in charge of La Liga side Valencia, he is a man used to having something to complain about.

Scott, with the air of an apologetic substitute teacher, moved in to ask Tindall to retreat. You could virtually hear him saying, “I’m going to treat you like a grown-up,” from the Gallowgate. But it is a tough cover lesson with the kids sitting at 52,000 other desks watching mockingly on.

Scott had ‘F.C.’ written in large lettering on the back of his tracksuit as part of a sponsorship deal. He might have needed a ‘U’ in front of that to have a chance of stopping Tindall reaching the touchline if it came to grappling.

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The game settled into a natural rhythm and so did Howe and Tindall. This is wordless communication through body language, a nod, a wink, a gaze. After 12 years managing together at Bournemouth, Burnley and now Newcastle, they are the old couple who can sit in the hotel buffet in contented silence.

Tindall has clear remits at Newcastle. As the attacking side of the game is predominantly Howe’s, he concerns himself with the intricacies of the press: when to move forward, when to drop back. When to be aggressive, when to be patient. When to take a risk.

He retired as a player in 2011 — but had all the fluidity of the 11 out on the pitch on Saturday evening as he triggered press after press to move himself upfield.

Howe laughed post-match when asked if they had been working on their rotations. “We have been discussing how this is going to work,” he acknowledged. “We’ve come up with a plan to make sure it does not affect our performance.”

Of course, with Howe being Howe, there were multiple plans not a plan.

There was the Trojan Horse — waiting for the entire stadium to be distracted by a VAR review before springing virtually the entire bench onto the touchline to impart instruction. At one point in the first half, Anthony Gordon found himself closed down more quickly by a small army of Newcastle assistants than the Villa defence.

There was the Rope-A-Dope, with Tindall and Howe standing next to each other, but at the back of the technical area near the dugout rather than up by the touchline. Scott could only watch their conspiratorial conversations — the wording of the law specifically addresses “the front of the technical area”.

Same old Newcastle — those who accused them of time-wasting last season might say — never quite playing by the spirit of the rules.

And finally, there was the Three Stooges — where fellow assistant Graeme Jones snuck forward to join them in a mass trespass. “You can’t arrest us all,” seemed to be the sentiment.

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Scott, feeling his powers wane, ensured Tonali was yellow-carded for coming off the pitch too slowly when substituted in stoppage time. Did he not realise this was a player who had played the game at his pace all day?

“We were having some friendly conversations,” said Howe post-match on his discussions with Scott. “It’s a strange dynamic, I think it can be a little bit petty at times where you’re talking about inches.

“We’re just trying to do the best job we can for our players. But it was well managed by Graham today.”

On the opening day of the season, in what became a comfortable four-goal win, these stipulations did not matter. Newcastle will have tenser moments, with greater tactical problems, and less time in which to solve them.

This issue could well reappear later in the season. Like any successful relationship, Howe and Tindall are constantly in the process of working things out.

One thing, though — there will be six games in the months ahead where this is not a worry — the rule does not apply in the Champions League.

(Top photo: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images)

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