Newcastle United deserved to lose to Leeds United.
The hosts played well and the win was rightfully theirs.
Nobody is denying that.
However, it has sadly been the case in the aftermath of this defeat for there to be a total lack of honesty when it comes to the Newcastle United narrative that is being pushed.
That narrative being astonishment at how this could have happened, how could it be possible for supposedly mighty Newcastle United to be humbled 4-1 in this Monday night Premier League match?
This is totally ignoring the back story to what has happened in recent times.
Of all the 92 clubs in the top four divisions, Newcastle United were the last one to appoint the Manager/Head Coach that would lead them into the 2026/27 season.
Matthias Jaissle was announced as the new man at St James’ Park on Wednesday 5 August 2026.
The German Head Coach then had 18 days to prepare before the first competitive match of the season, Liverpool in the Premier League on Sunday 23 August.
Exactly 40 days after starting the job, Matthias Jaissle has experienced his first defeat as Newcastle United boss.
Having had 18 days to prepare his Newcastle United players for the most competitive league of all, the new man having faced six matches (in all competitions) in a touch over three weeks.
Whilst many in the media (and some amongst the NUFC fanbase) are now choosing to ‘forget’ what happened this summer, a bit of honesty is called for.
As well as the club losing a manager and his entire backroom staff, the likes of Bruno Guimaraes, Anthony Gordon, Kieran Trippier and Sandro Tonali also left Tyneside.
With each of these departures, especially the three big money transfers, I distinctly remember that across the media they gleefully reported that Newcastle United had lost their most important players, the ones that made a difference. Yet what they were reporting then, how difficult (impossible?) it would make it for Newcastle United this 2026/27 season, all conveniently forgotten.
It is the same with the serious UEFA SCR issues that have impacted Newcastle United. These issues massively restricting how NUFC could operate in the transfer market for the foreseeable. Newcastle already had a too small squad with not enough depth last season and then faced with having to significantly lower the wage bill and sell some key players, the Newcastle United hierarchy seeing the only viable solution to take a calculated gamble on a lot of very young and inexperienced players, eight of the nine summer buys having never played a single minute of Premier League football.
The summer window seeing United sign two 18-yar-olds, three 20-year-olds, a 21-year-old, plus three 24-year-olds.
The three outfield signings over the age of 20 who came in this summer, none of the trio had any pre-season with the rest of the Newcastle United squad and indeed all three actually bought in after Matthias Jaissle’s 5 August own arrival.
The only surprise for me about the 4-1 reality check at Elland Road was that it didn’t happen earlier.
In my opinion, Matthias Jaissle worked miracles in such a short space of time as he was parachuted into a backdrop of utter chaos and instability throughout the club. I don’t think there was a single Newcastle United fan who approached that Liverpool match with anything but a sense of dread at what could and almost certainly would happen. In the circumstances, the way the team played against Iraola’s side stunned us all, cheated out of a deserved win so late on. The Newcastle United midfield on that opening day was made up of an 18-year-old Sean Steur who in his career had only started a handful of games in the weak Dutch league, playing alongside a 20-year-old Lewis Miley who had been recovering from a broken leg and he’d only been able to play a total of 45 minutes in the entire pre-season friendly programme.
Photo by Dave via The Mag
Based on their performance on Monday night, Newcastle United deserved to lose to Leeds United. At the same time though, the performances against Liverpool, Spurs, West Brom and Millwall all deserved to end in United wins. Bournemouth could have been out of sight after 35 minutes instead of ‘only’ 2-0 up, but I would argue that based on what then happened in the final hour or so of the match, Newcastle showed a lot of character and eventually deserved their draw.
I think Matthias Jaissle has held things together brilliantly in the circumstances. If before a ball was kicked you had offered those first five performances and results of this 2026/27 season, not a single Newcastle United fan wouldn’t have taken it. Indeed, taking into account the upheaval on and off the pitch in recent months, I struggle to see why any NUFC fan wouldn’t have accepted the entire opening half dozen performances and results if offered as a package.
This season was always going to be a huge challenge and despite the promising results and performances ahead of Elland Road, I was still absolutely believing that to be the case.
Monday night saw the fragility that we all knew potentially could come to the fore in any match this season, it ending up fully exposed 90 miles down the road from St James’ Park. How though could you not really feel for Matthias Jaissle when on top of everything else, he now finds himself set to be missing Elanga, Jaouen, Joelinton, Osula, Burn, Ramsey and Gonzalez for the Hull City match on Saturday?
The way the media (and some NUFC fans) have gone on following the defeat at Leeds, you would think that Matthias Jaissle had been shouting the odds and claiming Newcastle United were real contenders this season after the early encouraging performances and results. Yet the exact opposite had been the case, the new Head Coach at pains to constantly say that this is going to be a very tough season full of huge challenges, so little pre-season preparation time for him to get ready his new squad that has lost numerous key players and a club that has moved to a model of the Director of Football very much in charge of player recruitment and the strategy to buy in almost entirely young inexperienced players from weaker leagues, in the hope that with TIME they have the potential to develop into ever better quality players who will also grow in terms of valuation.
I don’t think it is any coincidence that 24-year-olds Gonzalez, Dedic and Hornicek have been amongst Newcastle’s best performers so far, certainly out of the summer signings. The new keeper got to the semi-finals of the Europa League last season with Braga, whilst Dedic and Gonzalez were playing Champions League football in 2025/26. Gonzalez of course the one new signing with Premier League experience already and at a high level playing for Man City, whilst Dedic was playing at the World Cup finals this summer and had over 30 caps for his country. Considering their age and lack of experience, even in lower ranked leagues, it isn’t any surprise that Matthias Jaissle is having to look after the 18 to 21-year-olds carefully.
Fernandez-Pardo looks a huge talent but I have no doubt that there’s no way Jaissle wanted to throw him in at the deep end against a battle hardened Premier League physical side such as Leeds at such an early juncture in his NUFC career, but felt he had no choice with his injury list. Steur looks also to have huge potential but when he pressed that self-destruct button and gifted the killer second goal last night, he looked very much like a naive 18-year-old who has only played a handful of first team matches in his career and is very much just beginning his steep learning curve. A very similar story with Toure and Aladji, although the former Hoffenheim winger showed us glimpses of what we can hopefully see as a starting player very soon.
Even if Matthias Jaissle had ended up losing all of his Newcastle United matches so far, I would still be right behind him. I think he has been very impressive, both in terms of how he has trained and prepared his team, as well as when he speaks in interviews and press conferences. Credit to the club in this instance because I think they have picked a very good one who can be a long-term success with Newcastle United if getting the necessary support from club and fans.
Eddie Howe arrived at St James’ Park in the most difficult of circumstances and won only one of his opening ten competitive matches. He ended up doing not too bad…
I think we all have to accept as well, Matthias Jaissle is very much having to learn on the job. He has been in the role less than six weeks and will be learning something new every day, not least when reflecting on this Leeds match. Not just when it came to the performance of the players, I think he will also look at this latest game as a very valuable learning tool for himself, as his own Premier League crash course learning is rapidly absorbed.
Here’s hoping we can all come together inside St James’ Park on Saturday and get the three points against Hull City.
To be sitting on eight points from five Premier League matches and into the last sixteen of the Carabao Cup (with hopefully a kind home draw pulled out on Wednesday night) would give us all very valuable breathing space, not least Matthias Jaissle himself. He will then have 23 days (five more than he had before Liverpool) to prepare for the next game away at Coventry on Monday 12 October and hopefully in the meantime be able to empty most of the missing players out of the treatment room.
Less than six weeks into the job, at the very least Matthias Jaissle deserves our full support as he attempts to navigate through a very challenging first season with Newcastle United.