Newcastle United's stand-in skipper Dan Burn has spoken of the importance of retaining Eddie Howe at St James' Park.
Like the rest of the squad, Burn has been keeping close tabs on the England situation with Howe still the favourite of many of the bookies. Howe shut down fresh suggestions of an approach from the FA for his services with Burn insisting the former Bournemouth boss is key to the future.
Burn, speaking in Tokyo, told Chronicle Live: "He’s been huge. I think he's been a massive part since the new ownership came in to push the club in the direction that we want it to go in. The way that we work every single day to build all of the games, I think you see that in the way that we play, the way that we train and the fans have reacted well to it.
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"I think we've performed well the last two seasons and I think the drive every day is to try and be better and him and all the staff push us to do that. Hopefully we'll have a similar season this season."
Burn has been handed the captain's armband in Tokyo with Kieran Trippier still not back from international duty and Jamaal Lascelles injured. He remains part of the leadership group and the 32-year-old from Blyth has been the senior squad member on hand to help the backroom team with opinions here in Japan.
He said: "Yeah, We’ve had lads leave so at the moment on this tour it’s only me. So it’s a bit lonely! But it’s between the staff and the players and I do think it’s important that there are leaders in the group."
Burn stated that the Magpies are looking for a new recruit for the leadership group after the departure of Matt Ritchie. There is even a chance that could be Anthony Gordon given his new levels of maturity in recent times.
Burn said: "People lead in different ways, there’s no set way to do it but with Matty Ritchie leaving we’ll be voting in a new player in the next couple of weeks.
"There are people ready to step up. I think there could be a lot more than five players in this leadership group. I think it's important that you keep it quite tight though, just so you don't have too many opinions going in. But yeah, there's lots of lads that could come in and make that step up."
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