Newcastle United will sack Matthias Jaissle and solve only one of their problems
The opening results of the season were a tad misleading but the truth is that Newcastle United are having an awful campaign.
They lost for the third time this season – beaten at home by Aston Villa 1-0 – courtesy of a player they failed to sign in the summer.
Newcastle are 11th in the table and level with Villa, but they are heading in very different directions.
It’s not too long ago that these two clubs were on similar trajectories. They were the Big Six + Two; they were better than the rest of the Premier League and hoping to displace one of the Champions League regulars on a consistent basis.
But while Villa have continued on that trajectory, Newcastle’s project has lost purpose and direction.
New manager Matthias Jaissle will inevitably get the blame and he does deserve a hefty portion. But nowhere near the biggest slice.
Newcastle have been poor at both ends of the pitch. They have created 11 big chances this season, the sixth lowest in the league. Of those 11 big chances they have created, they have missed 10. They average 3.6 shots on target per game, a record better than only Hull and Villa.
At the back, only Crystal Palace, Ipswich and Sunderland have conceded more xG than Newcastle so far this season. No team has made more errors leading to an opponent’s shot than Newcastle.
So what is it exactly that this Newcastle team does well?
Eddie Howe’s team were praised for being aggressive, winning the ball high up the pitch and playing with a high intensity. This season, only Villa and Coventry have won the ball back in the final third less than Newcastle.
Howe’s system had issues – largely that when you throw in the challenge of Champions League matches, the players became exhausted – but it has not taken long for rival Premier League managers to work out Jaissle.
Leeds set the blueprint in a 4-1 hammering. The key to hurting this Newcastle is by attacking their lightweight midfield. In that Monday night battering, 20-year-old Lewis Miley and Nico Gonzalez were overrun by Leeds’ five-man midfield, exposing Newcastle’s error-prone back four.
Frank Lampard did the same with his Coventry side. Joe Willock, who is not a central midfielder, managed just one tackle and one interception before being hooked on the hour mark. Playing Yoanne Wissa in the 10 is a clear message that you have no interest in defending or protecting the pair behind him; get through that gossamer-thin protection and you have free rein to make the back four look silly.
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In lieu of a physicality that has a purpose, Newcastle have resorted to just fouling instead. They concede 12.1 fouls per game and only Hull have had more bookings. Newcastle were perhaps lucky to keep 11 men on the pitch against Villa.
This Newcastle squad is not amongst the best in the league but it is far from the worst. Jaissle speaks with a confidence that makes you think he has a plan but when he said they “dominated” a game in which they had equal possession, fewer shots on target, a lower xG and fewer passes completed, you begin to see through that sharply dressed demeanour.
The German coach, who had little experience in Europe before joining Newcastle, will be the one held ultimately to blame and likely sacked, but he is a small part of a much wider problem on Tyneside.
Newcastle were the fifth-biggest spenders in terms of outright expenditure in the summer but only really spent the money they earned from player sales. Their net spend of less than £30m was the seventh lowest in the Premier League. This is coming from the club that has the richest owners, almost double the wealth of the team in second.
High transfer spend is not something necessarily to boast about – look at Tottenham – but does a relative lack of investment reflect a change in approach from the Saudis’ Public Investment Fund?
In a decade-long project, the Saudis’ sportswashing campaign has found that money does tend to solve all problems. Boxers Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury have both held high-profile fights in the country. A Formula 1 race takes place there every year when there is no bombing campaign nearby. The Saudi Pro League has Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane and a whole load of familiar names playing in it.
Newcastle was supposed to be the PIF’s route into the most lucrative league in the world but stringent financial rules have provided the first real roadblock in their plans. PSR, which undoubtedly has been designed to protect the clubs already at the big boys’ table, means the PIF cannot spend their way to success.
Newcastle are also the ‘victims’ of a change of approach. The PIF announced its 2026-30 strategy would be ‘a natural evolution’ from ‘rapid growth and acceleration to a new phase of sustained value creation’. Which you can essentially read as ‘we spent a load of money and people still don’t like us so we’re going to stop’.
They sold a 70% stake in Al Hilal in April. The Asian Winter Games were due to be hosted in Saudi but moved to Kazakhstan. Breakaway golf league LIV Golf spectacularly collapsed after the Saudis withdrew their investment of £4bn. Tennis and snooker tournaments have also been moved.
The Saudis have insisted they remain committed to Newcastle, pointing towards plans to redevelop St James’ Park as proof of long-term interest, but their actions are speaking louder than their words.
They feel like a club reacting to the circumstances around them rather than being proactive. Howe had longstanding doubts about his future and even though the club were able to convince him to continue, they should have prepared for a scenario in which he departed.
Was an unproven manager really the best option they could find? Or was he the best they could find three weeks before the new season began?
Granted, the job was not exactly an attractive one with Newcastle having lost Bruno Guimaraes, Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon in the same window. Unless you are the best of the best, losing players of that calibre is inevitable, but losing three in the same window would be catastrophic for any side.
Brighton are lauded for their conveyor belt of talent but the Seagulls do not have a monopoly on having an effective scouting system. In the summer that Brighton lost Moises Caicedo and Alexis Mac Allister, they signed Joao Pedro, Carlos Baleba and Bart Verbruggen for a combined €81m. Newcastle spent €60m on Matias Fernandez-Pardo alone this summer.
And for a club of their size, with a large catchment area, Newcastle do not produce a huge number of good academy products. Lewis Miley is the best current prospect still at the club while Elliot Anderson was sold for pennies on the pound to conform to PSR.
Newcastle fans can rightly blame PSR, for it has undoubtedly prevented them and Villa from breaking into the elite, but the club are currently behind two promoted teams and the money they have spent has been spent poorly.
Newcastle spent £69m on a player that does not fit their system and is on loan at Juventus a year later, while £55m on a 28-year-old Wissa felt like an overspend at the time and even more so now. Anthony Elanga, who is probably not even amongst the top 10 best right wingers in the league, cost £55m.
Fans will point at PSR and suggest that is the reason why the club is heading down and not up but 13 other Premier League teams are faced with similar challenges and a number of them punch above their weight.
Jaissle will likely get sacked and maybe the next manager will at least get better results, but European qualification already looks unlikely. Reaching the Champions League feels impossible.
Newcastle’s crowning moment of recent years was the League Cup win which felt like confirmation that they were now amongst the best of the best in the Premier League. In the year and a half that’s followed, it feels like they are anything but.
