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It wasn’t long ago that Matthias Jaissle was being celebrated as the man to turn around Newcastle’s fortune and lead them into the new era but the German coach has already found himself under huge pressure after his side’s recent run of form.
Jaissle arrived at Newcastle in August in tense circumstances after a difficult summer which saw a host of key players leave and previous boss Eddie Howe suddenly resign during the middle of pre-season.
Yet, Jaissle proved a calming figure who brought innovative new ideas to a project dubbed ‘Newcastle 2.0’ by the club’s CEO and they felt they had unearthed a gem after a five-match unbeaten start, including impressive performances against Liverpool and Tottenham.
However, Newcastle have lost five of their last seven games since then, with many poor results and performances against sides they would have hoped to beat, leading to a situation that is quickly developing to crisis levels.
In particular, Jaissle has come under fire due to his insistence on ‘vertical football’, which led to the coach admitting that his players resulted to hopeless long balls as they struggled to impose themselves in a disappointing 1-0 home loss to Everton on Monday.
Jaissle has also refused to move away from a 4-2-3-1 system despite seeing it exposed by numerous teams in the same way and the 38-year-old could already be reaching ‘make-or-break’ status unless results – and performances – turn around in the coming weeks.
Newcastle facing ‘make or break’ situation with Matthias Jaissle
Newcastle currently sit 13th in the Premier League with 11 points from nine matches but, alarmingly, stats from Opta suggest they should be bottom, having overperformed by three points based on xG.
Premier League Expected Points: The table after MD9 https://t.co/nWWzpy6Jrl
— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) November 3, 2026
And the ‘eye test’ would back it up, with Newcastle regularly finding themselves carved open with ease in multi-goal away losses to Leeds, Coventry and Everton in their recent run.
Indeed, only Crystal Palace – whom Newcastle did beat 2-0 last month – have conceded more shots on goal than the Magpies, while only Coventry have completed less tackles and no other side has made fewer interceptions.
Most of Newcastle’s problems have come down to their imbalanced midfield, which has left the defence exposed and resulted in centre-back pairing Malick Thiaw and Sven Botman dropped for the experience of Fabian Schar and Dan Burn, to little improvement.
Instead, strong calls have come for Jaissle to revert to a three-man midfield, particularly in order to get 18-year-old Sean Steur into the side, with the former Ajax youngster proving to be one of the only bright pieces of Newcastle’s summer transfer business.
Newcastle spent €313 million in the summer to offset the losses of Sandro Tonali, Anthony Gordon and captain Bruno Guimaraes, however the majority of their outlay was on young players who have yet to make an impact on the first team.
The business prompted The Telegraph to report this week that Newcastle’s senior players felt ‘hamstrung’ by the poor recruitment, which they believe to be the biggest reason behind their early-season struggles.
It was also reiterated that Jaissle still has the support of the dressing room and the club, however the goodwill is fast evaporating with fans, who booed off their team after the loss to Everton which saw just one shot on target come in the 86th minute.
Jaissle has remained defiant, although he was critical of his players during the week, even though he stopped short of blaming them and merely explained that they were simply lacking confidence and not ‘brave’ enough.
“Long balls was not the plan,” Jaissle said after the 1-0 loss to Everton. “It’s something we need to work on.
“We lack confidence; to come out of that, we need to stick together. We need to make a fast learning curve in the right direction. This is now the next step to clearly analyse it in-depth, and ask why we could not start the game as we originally planned.”
“I was aware of the anger. Big frustration, big disappointment because we couldn’t transfer what we saw in the week. The team was training at a high level, but since the ref started the game, not much was seen. It’s difficult to understand.
“Of course the fans are frustrated, like we are. Unfortunately, we couldn’t deliver. Actually, over the whole 90 minutes, it was not our game and our style of playing. That is something we are very frustrated and disappointed about. If you cannot deliver when it counts, then you don’t deserve to win. We were not brave enough in possession, too many long balls.”
Newcastle have no plans to replace Jaissle anytime soon and, privately, there is an acceptance that this is the outcome of hiring an inexperienced manager still adapting to inexperienced football, as well as players of a similar mould.
However, the situation could become untenable if things do not improve, particularly with a crucial home derby match against Sunderland next month in a fixture that Newcastle lost both times last season.
Ultimately, it has become clear that Jaissle’s system is not suiting Newcastle’s players and the head coach will need to adapt immediately to get the best out of his stars or risk dying by his principles.
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