Eddie Howe’s Next Move: One More Club Job or England Awaits?

For AFC Bournemouth supporters, Eddie Howe’s next move will always carry a little more intrigue than it would with other managers. After all, he is the man who took the Cherries from League Two to the Premier League, he built a club that would eventually establish itself among England’s elite, and he left behind a legacy that remains difficult to match.

So when Howe walked away from Newcastle United this summer, the obvious question was - what is next for our special one?

In a recent article, Daily Telegraph has already pondered his future and identified a number of potential destinations - among them: England.

It's very a hypothetical question, but for those who watched Howe work so closely at Bournemouth, there is another point worth pondering: is the modern international game even suited to a manager who has always wanted to be so hands-on?

At 48, Howe has already packed an extraordinary amount into his managerial career. After well as the exploits at Bournemouth, he enhanced his reputation at Newcastle, where he turned a relegation-threatened side into a Champions League club and delivered the Carabao Cup in 2025.

Packing an extraordinary amount into the game is perhaps an understatement, as Eddie is famously obsessive about football. When he works, he works all the time - he's first in to the training centre in the morning, and last out in the evening - and that intensity has arguably been one of the biggest reasons for his success.

But, he was burned out when he left Bournemouth, and again after his stint on Tyneside, and in 2025 - and this came at a cost, after he was hospitalised with pneumonia in the April, shortly after Newcastle's League Cup triumph. 

The Telegraph's report says the illness took a significant physical and mental toll and even suggests that Howe did not give himself enough time to recover fully, so, as he ponders his next move, perhaps this isn't simply another case of a manager waiting for the next opportunity - and maybe Eddie has reached the point where he needs to decide what he actually wants from the next chapter of his career.

This is where things get particularly interesting.

Howe has previously been quite open about his reservations over international management. The article noted that when the FA were considering him after Gareth Southgate's departure, Howe wasn't interested because he believed he would miss the daily interaction with his players - and that makes perfect sense when you look at the way Howe has always worked.

He is a hands-on manager.

He wants to coach. He wants to work with players every day. He wants to improve them on the training pitch, understand their personalities and build relationships. He doesn't strike you as someone who would particularly enjoy seeing his players for a few days every couple of months and then sending them back to their clubs - international management is a completely different job.

But Howe is also 48 now. Perhaps his priorities have changed, and perhaps the very thing that made international football less appealing to him five years ago could now be part of its attraction.

Instead of spending 60-plus hours a week consumed by one club, there would be periods away from football. There would be breathing space. More time with his family. More opportunity to step away from the intensity that appears to have consumed him at both Bournemouth and Newcastle.

So could England suit him?

Howe has made no secret of his desire to manage England one day, describing it as the ultimate honour for an Englishman, and whilst Thomas Tuchel looks set to remain in charge through the next major tournament cycle, there is another reason why Howe potentially feels like an increasingly logical successor...

Whilst Tuchel selected Scott in his latest England squad, the Bournemouth midfielder was again not in the starting XI against Czechia.

Those with a Bournemouth hat, including ourselves, are always wary of being blinded by our own stars, and lets face it - different managers have different philosophies and different ways of putting a team together - but it does highlight an interesting contrast.

Howe would look at England differently.

He has spent much of his career getting teams to outperform their individual parts. His success at Bournemouth wasn't built around simply collecting the eleven most talented players and finding somewhere to put them. It was about creating a team, a system, a collective.

And that could be particularly valuable at international level, where there is so little time to work with players.

Howe would have to adapt, of course. International management would still require compromises that club management doesn't. He would have to accept that he couldn't coach his players every day.

But perhaps that is exactly the challenge he would eventually relish.

That is the difficult part, as whilst England might theoretically offer Howe a different lifestyle, would he would find it easy to completely detach himself from the day-to-day business of coaching? He has spent virtually his entire adult life immersed in it.

One thing is clear - he has nothing left to prove by taking over a struggling Premier League club and trying to keep it up. He doesn't need the money. He doesn't need the experience.

If he comes back, surely it has to be because the project excites him.

Whatever Howe eventually decides, his next move will be fascinating for Bournemouth supporters watching from afar. A move to a domestic club job could give him one more chance to prove what he can achieve with the right project, perhaps even abroad, while waiting for the England job could offer a very different challenge at a stage of his career when priorities have inevitably changed.

The one thing that seems certain is that Howe will not rush it. After everything he has given to Bournemouth and Newcastle, perhaps the biggest decision of his career now is not where he goes next, but whether he is ready to give football everything all over again.

You just know that, whatever he decides, it'll be the right decision.