EDDIE Howe has labelled suffering relegation with Cherries as the lowest point of his managerial career, explaining: “I felt like I’d let everybody down.”

After a monumental rise up from League Two, legendary boss Howe kept Cherries in the Premier League for five seasons.

But, after the campaign restarted during COVID-19, Howe could not avoid Cherries from slipping into the Championship in July 2020.

Howe left the club by mutual consent the following week, after almost eight years back in Dorset, taking a sabbatical.

Bournemouth Echo:

He returned to management in November 2021 at Newcastle United, taking them away from the relegation zone and qualifying for this season’s Champions League.

Speaking on The Overlap, Howe was asked for his lowest moment in football.

He said: “Definitely the moment in my management career would be relegation from the Premier League.

“I’d given so much to the Bournemouth job and I cared so much about the team and club’s success.

“I was so involved with that emotionally, living in the area, coming through the youth team there, I was Bournemouth through and through, so I really felt that pain and I felt like I’d let everybody down.

“I knew then that it was time for me to leave, I had no more energy to give to help the club get back up, I was spent on energy and needed to recharge myself.

“That stayed with me for months and months.

“Ultimately, it’s probably helped me, to come out of that period refreshed, refocused, and it helped me learn.

“When you are perceived to have failed, I reset, re-evaluated and then hopefully come back better.”

Reflecting back on his successful times at Cherries, notably the 2014-15 Championship title season, Howe said: “We were an unbelievable team to manage, and I loved every second.

“We won the Championship in great style; we played some unbelievable football.

“Then we get to the Premier League, and you’re thinking that we’ll need to rebuild, we’re not going to survive in the Premier League.

“But those players went again and suddenly we were giving the top teams a really good game, with players that had fought with every fibre to be at that level.

“It was so inspirational for me to manage that group of players, they were incredible.

“I still look at that period as one of the happiest in my management career.”

He added: “When you win something, where there is an actual trophy to lift, there is no better feeling.

“But when you get into the Premier League, it is just an eye opener on every level.

“We were just able to survive the early years in the Premier League and that gave me just as much satisfaction as well."