Eddie Howe’s love and care steering Newcastle ever closer to harmony

When Newcastle’s players arrived at Dubai’s Nad Al Sheba sports complex last week sharp-eyed onlookers were astonished to spot a couple of unexpected faces. Although Isaac Hayden and Ciaran Clark had been omitted from Eddie Howe’s 25-man Premier League squad in January, they were still offered seats on the plane to a warm-weather break in the Middle East and participated fully in a week’s bonding beneath a series of scorching Emirati suns.

“It’s very important we treat everyone with love and care,” explained Howe as he justified the pair’s inclusion. Football managers can never keep everybody happy all the time but Newcastle’s head coach has worked hard to create harmony at St James’ Park and the benefits are already translating into wins on the pitch.

There were no victories before Howe took charge of the team in November but he has since presided over seven from 19 games, lifting Newcastle to the verge of mid-table security.

Each time three points have been collected, Howe routinely asks all non-playing substitutes and squad members to join off-field staff and injured players in posing for a landmark smiling group photograph alongside those who actually played in the match. It may seem a bit cheesy to some but Howe believes such unifying exercises are every bit as integral to Newcastle’s renaissance as his reinvention of Joelinton.

“It’s part of the culture we’re trying to create, a culture in which everyone’s in it together,” says Steve Bruce’s successor. “It’s not just about the first XI on the pitch; everyone at the club plays a huge part in any success.”

This communitarian philosophy has proved persuasive. Perhaps most notably, Jamaal Lascelles accepts that, since Dan Burn’s £13m arrival from Brighton, his place in