Dan Burn Reflects on Eddie Howe’s Departure and Embraces Change at Newcastle
Dan Burn admits Eddie Howe’s exit stunned him – but the new Newcastle captain believes a change in the dugout could yet jolt the club into a new phase.
The defender spoke in the wake of Sunday’s 3-2 penalty shootout defeat to Strasbourg, a pre-season friendly that finished 1-1 in normal time but felt overshadowed by the ongoing fallout from Howe’s departure and the arrival of new head coach Matthias Jaissle.
Burn: “I didn’t think he was going to do it”
Burn, now wearing the armband for his boyhood club, cut through any notion that the squad had long expected Howe to walk away.
“No, if I'm honest,” he admitted when asked if he saw it coming. “I didn't think he was going to do it. I knew he was disappointed after the Fulham game, but I thought after the summer he was going to be ready to come back.”
That final-day defeat to Fulham last season clearly left scars. Howe’s frustration was obvious, but Burn still anticipated a reset, not a resignation.
Instead, the news reached him thousands of miles away.
“I spoke to him regularly in the off-season, but yeah, I was in Canada when I found out, I just had a few texts when I woke up,” Burn said, as quoted by The Shields Gazette.
The shock soon gave way to a more sober reflection on where Newcastle stand and what comes next.
“Listen, there's always time for change, and Eddie obviously thought that it was time for him to step away. For lots of reasons people did think it was time for a change. Either way, I was sad to see the manager go, but change can be a good thing and hopefully we'll see the start of that this week.”
Embracing Jaissle’s demands
The focus now is Jaissle and the shift he brings. Burn knows the dressing room cannot afford a slow adjustment.
The centre-back, who has worked under a long list of managers in his career, framed the transition as an opportunity rather than a threat.
“I've played under a lot of managers, so I've tried to take a little bit from everyone,” he said. “But in my experience change can be good if you put that effort into it and embrace the new change and the new philosophy.”
That word – embrace – will matter on Tyneside. Jaissle will ask for tweaks, maybe wholesale changes, and Burn is already pushing the squad and the city to lean into it.
“As a club and as a city, I hope that's what we're going to do this season,” he continued. “The younger lads are going to need a lot of support this year. I'm hoping that the crowd can bring that.”
The message is clear: the tactical shift is one thing; the emotional backing from the stands is another. Newcastle’s new era will need both.
Boyhood dream, real responsibility
Amid the upheaval, Burn’s own story has taken a deeply personal turn. The 6ft 6in defender, who grew up a Newcastle fan, now leads the team out as club captain.
“I'm very proud to be named club captain,” he said. “Some things you can't really dream of when you're a kid, but for me that was a dream from very early on to be captain of Newcastle, so very grateful for the opportunity and looking forward to leading the lads this season.”
A shock managerial departure. A new philosophy. A local lad with the armband. Newcastle are stepping into something unknown, and Burn has nailed his colours to it: change is here, and he intends to stand at the front of it.
