Newcastle will visit City on Saturday on the back of a 6-1 Champions League playoff win at Qarabag, with Anthony Gordon scoring four times on the night.
Howe said of the Scouser: "Every player has a preference on sides and positions. You want the player to play where he is most comfortable. Ant has good qualities in that position. None more so than his pressing and intensity.
"Anthony has some really good qualities in that position. His pressing intensity but also is tactical understanding of when to do it and how to do it is of the very highest level.
"A couple of our goals came from his regains and that's not by luck, it's by his really good judgement. I was delighted with his performance."
City the benchmark
On meeting City away from home, Howe says they have learned from their Carabao Cup semifinal defeat to the Sky Blues earlier this month.
He stated: "We learn something every game not about them, about us. They are the benchmark, with each painful defeat we have suffered you grow from it.
"Every time we've played there, I think we've made mistakes big enough to cost us the game. We've been in the games, they've been competitive, but they have been too good for us on a number of occasions and we need to bridge that gap this weekend.
"Every team you play is beatable. That gives us hope and the evidence is there that we can win the game. We have to do everything right, tactically, physically. We've done it before and if we turn up we know we can do it."
On how fresh the players will be after their round-trip to Azerbaijan, Howe was upbeat.
He continued: "It was a late night for us, roughly a 4am return, actually maybe a bit later.
"So sleep was an issue but I think a good night's rest for them last night and another sleep to go so hopefully by the time the game comes around we'll be OK.
"Hopefully a lot of positives come out of the last few away wins. Three tough games in their own right but the performances have been really good and the individual performances have been a lot stronger. Collectively we've been much better."
Wissa and Guimaraes
Newcastle will face City without Yoane Wissa, who is still nursing a knock picked up in training.
Howe admitted: “I don’t think Yoane will be available at the weekend, but I don’t think he’ll be too far off, maybe the Qarabag game (second-leg).
"He got the injury in training, it was a nasty little knock, but I think he’ll be fine."
Skipper Bruno Guimaraes is now in Brazil as he recovers from a serious hamstring injury.
Howe also said: “There’s no massive updates on Bruno, he’s in Brazil and judging by a couple of pictures I’ve seen, he’s enjoying himself! That’s typical Bruno – seeing him watching the game did make me laugh because his passion and love for the team was shining through.
"We wish him well from afar. Tino’s (Livramento) making good progress, but I still don’t think we’re going to shave much time off the early March date that was set for him."
Along with Tino Livramento, Howe also delivered an update on fellow youngster Lewis Miley.
"Lewie Miley still has a little bit to go. Without going into too much medical stuff which is beyond me, it was a dead leg, but it disturbed a bit of the muscle.
"I don’t think he’s too far away, nothing more than a week or a couple of weeks maximum, but we’ve been told that we’ve got to be careful with it.”
However, the manager offered better news for the Toon's defence tomorrow, revealing Sven Botman could make the clash.
Howe added, “There’s better news on Sven Botman. He could be in and around this game."