You probably already have an opinion on Jason Tindall. It would be difficult not to. Newcastle United’s assistant head coach is more visible, colourful, confrontational and, for many opposition managers, more annoying than anyone else in the Premier League.
Tindall is in-your-face loud. He will argue and complain on the touchline. He is in the fourth official’s ear and gets under your skin. He is impossible to ignore and, apparently, hard to like if you are on the opposition bench.
There is not another assistant manager like him, but there is one thing you need to know about Tindall, something that fuels him, something that has made him Eddie Howe’s most trusted and loyal companion for 17 years: he “does not give a s---”.
Newcastle fans adored him long before he and Howe delivered the club’s first domestic trophy for 70 years. But the man they have dubbed Mad Dog is far more than just football’s ultimate wind-up merchant.
“I don’t exactly know what that Mad Dog thing is or why it came about,” Tindall says, leaning forward in his chair in the new Sir Bobby Robson Room at Newcastle United’s training ground. “It’s probably to do with the way I am on the sidelines.
“I’m very, very passionate, I’ll do anything to win and that’s probably a good thing. Eddie isn’t very emotional on the touchline and I think it is important that I am the way I am. If I wasn’t, that is something he would probably have to be and there is so much other stuff that is important on a match day that he needs to focus on. I take that side of things away.
“When he was younger Eddie used to get much more involved in those arguments, but it has happened naturally, it’s me who does it. I very rarely think I’ve crossed the line. I will vent my frustration if I’m not happy with certain things. I don’t think I’m disrespectful.
“Obviously, the opposition want to win too and sometimes they will say things that I don’t agree with. I will let that be known. If I’m there to be that person to have an argument, that is what I’m going to do.”
When I put it to him, that for many outside of Newcastle, he is the most irritating man in football, Tindall’s eyes light up and a broad, gleaming white smile spreads across his face.
“It’s not my intention to attract attention if that makes sense,” he said. “People say I’ve got too high a profile for an assistant manager, how that has come about, but again, I don’t take any notice of it or think I’m going to do this to gain more attention.
“The outside world can say what they say, but it’s just me. I just go about my business. This isn’t new and Ed will say the same, the way I am at Newcastle is exactly the same as I was at Bournemouth.
“It’s part of my character, I don’t care what people think [including opposition managers]. I know who I am, the job I do and the influence I have over a lot of things. And the only thing I care about is doing my job the best I can for Newcastle United.
“I don’t care if I’m upsetting people along the way. People will probably judge the way I look, what I wear and how I behave. None of this is new to me. The reality is I do not give a s--- what people think and what people say because I’m confident in my own skin, I’m confident in what I do. If you don’t know me, what you think doesn’t matter in the slightest.”
It is at this point that we need to pause. Tindall is also not the man you think he is. He is a brilliant coach and is largely responsible for Newcastle’s defensive shape and training, as well as designing set-pieces. He is involved in every aspect of the team’s preparations. He is also the link between the players and the manager.
More importantly, he is Howe’s partner, his confidante and his support network. They are very much a team, who have spent almost every hour together for the best part of two decades.
Former team-mates at Bournemouth, who were “not close” and did “not have the same friendship circle”, they were thrown into management together “because there was nobody else who would do it” under a transfer embargo and facing relegation in League Two.
Listening to Tindall talk about Howe, the way they work together, offers a fascinating insight into how these two different characters and personalities have combined their powers to such great effect.
“We are together that whole time, from 8am to 6pm. We’ve been together like that for 17 years, we’ve been side by side a hell of a long time. We have always shared the same office, we’ve always worked on top of each other, we discuss everything.
“I’ve spent more time with Eddie than anyone else in my life, without a doubt. We’d include our wives in that. We are different personalities, completely different characters. He’s an introvert, I’m the extrovert, that’s obvious, but we have an excellent working relationship. We are totally honest with each other. We have different opinions, we disagree, but I will always respect that he has the final say.
“Whatever arguments we have, it stays behind closed doors and when we step out of the office, we speak as one. I will always back his decision. That’s important. That is the loyalty I have to him and have had for many, many years. He trusts me, we trust each other implicitly. I’m incredibly loyal to Eddie, he gets the best out of me and I hope I bring the best out of him.
“We see football the same way, we want to play the same way. We instinctively know what the other person wants, what they are thinking. Our principles are the same. As a football brain we think the same. We know what a top manager Eddie is, but there is a lot of pressure on him, the media, the expectations, the football decisions, I’m here to support him.
“You need people around you that you can trust, people you can lean on and we have that relationship. If he’s having a bad day, and look, he’s got a lot better at dealing with those the more experienced he has become, but it’s my job to lift him when it is needed. It’s my job to take some of that pressure away.”
So are they really not friends, after all this time? “We don’t really think of each other as friends, but we need each other,” Tindall replied. “It’s like a good marriage, we support each other, we rely on each other and we need each other to stay together and be successful.
“With the amount of time we spend at work and in the office together, to socialise with each other after that, it would be too much.”
Howe remains the boss, he is the man in charge and Tindall will never pretend otherwise. In turn, Howe has no problem with Tindall getting so much attention, in fact he pushed him to agree to this interview. He knows better than anyone how important his assistant has been to his own success.
Tindall tried his hand at management, replacing Howe when he stepped down following Bournemouth’s relegation to the Championship in 2020. He lasted only one season and does not want to have another go at it. He is happy being a number two.
Reunited at Newcastle, the last three years have been everything they dreamed it would be.
“We have found the perfect football club for us because it is such an emotional football club,” Tindall explains. “It was always a football club we looked at from afar and we always loved. When I was growing up, I loved the [Kevin] Keegan ‘entertainers’ team. Ed was the same. We wanted to bring that back. We wanted to play with the same passion, high-intensity, attacking football. That was one of the most important things we spoke about when we arrived. We have to give the fans, the city, the football team they want to see.
“Winning the [Carabao] cup final, it meant more to me to give the city what it always wanted than for me as a personal achievement. It’s a city that does that to you. It has brought something out of me, it has tapped into my personality because Ed and I have that same passion. It is almost life and death here and that is how we see the game too.”
So what is next for Howe and Tindall; what is the next mountain they want to climb on Tyneside? “When you win one, you want more,” he says. “The great teams go again, that is what separates them from the good ones. We want to build a great team here.
“You know after we won at Wembley, it was a very emotional moment for us both. To have started at the bottom with Bournemouth, to go through the leagues together and to have finally won a trophy, I think we both appreciated how special that was and how much we had achieved together.
“I wouldn’t want to have done it any other way or with anyone else than Ed. We have been on a remarkable journey together that we don’t want to stop.”
On his clashes with Jürgen Klopp
“I respect all managers, I know how tough the job is. Jürgen Klopp is one of the best managers around and I have a huge amount of respect for him.
“What happens on the touchline, nothing is personal, if I fall out with anyone, it’s just in the heat of battle. I’m defending my corner and my corner is Newcastle United. How I do that, maybe sometimes it crosses the line with what I say, but it’s not meant to be disrespectful.
“Sometimes I upset people and if it upsets people, I can’t do anything about that. My only thought process is I’m Newcastle United and I will do anything to win. I’m there for Eddie and the players, that is it, that’s all that matters.”
On Unai Emery and sparking a tunnel melee against Aston Villa.
“Unai is a top manager and you can’t knock what he has achieved in his career and he is doing an incredible job at Aston Villa. If he decides not to shake my hand, I’m not in control of that. I left my hand there and you know, that is what I will always do. If someone refuses to shake it, that is down to them and has nothing to do with me.
“We’ve had disagreements on the touchline, a couple of times, in the tunnel, if they want to take offence at me, that is up to them. I’ve got no problem with that.”
On set-piece secrets for Liverpool at Wembley
“We had spotted a weakness and we had been working on it for a couple of weeks in training. We’d spotted that [Virgil] Van Dijk and [Ibrahima] Konaté, who are their two best headers of a ball, were front-loaded and they left weaker players aerially in deeper areas. With people like [Dan] Burn and Joelinton we realised we could have an advantage.
“When we played them at Anfield in the league, we made the decision not to show our hand with the set-pieces we were working on. We played a completely different way in that game because we knew we were going to approach the game in a different style at Wembley.
“The set-pieces were kept back for the final and the players delivered them perfectly, it was an amazing header from Dan Burn and we should have had another one when we sent Burn into the middle and freed up Joelinton at the back post. I don’t take the credit for them, it was a team effort.”
