It suddenly dawned on me that this particular Matthias Jaissle angle with Newcastle United hasn’t been properly explored before.
Indeed, I can’t say I have seen it even mentioned.
What about considering this facet when it comes to Eddie Howe’s replacement….
If Matthias Jaissle (pictured at the top in his playing days for Hoffenheim) has been capable of achieving what he has done so far at Newcastle United in near impossible circumstances, what could he potentially do when he has….not so impossible circumstances?
I thought that would make you stop and think!
Get in your time machine and travel back to the morning of Sunday 23 August 2026.
Hand on heart, if somebody had told you back then, that after ten Newcastle United games under Matthias Jaissle there would have been five wins, two draws and only three defeats, you would have simply laughed.
The mood ahead of the Liverpool match saw Newcastle United fans simply resigned to a nightmare season.
A nightmare summer had seen Kieran Trippier, Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Eddie Howe leave, with Bruno Guimares set to head out the exit door as Matthias Jaissle arrived.
The new Head Coach’s arrival coincided with Lukas Hornicek coming in as well, both Jaissle and the keeper coming in with less than three weeks to go until the season kicked off.
Eddie Howe and so many star players leaving, whilst the only ones coming in before August had been reserve keeper (20 year old) Ewen Jaouen, 18 year old Sean Steur, 20 year olds Bazoumana Toure and Aladji Bamba.
Amar Dedic was then signed only days before the Liverpool match, Nico Gonzalez and Matias Fernandez-Pardo arriving after the season had kicked off.
We all thought the summer 2025 preparations for the 2025-26 Newcastle United season had been total chaos.
Well, summer 2026 said hold my coat when it came to the chaos ahead of the 2026-27 NUFC season kicking off.
Howe and so many star players had left, a small handful of very young inexperienced overseas players had been signed, key transfer targets Munoz and Manzambi choosing Liverpool and Villa instead, amongst the injured unavailable players for the new season were key (of those who remained!) stars such as Burn, Livramento and Joelinton.
Yet instead of certain disaster, Newcastle United picked up four points against Liverpool and Spurs which should have been six, two clubs who between them had spent £225m on two of United’s crown jewels in the previous 12 months. Whilst that first week saw Matthias Jaissle also oversee a Carabao Cup win over West Brom.
Very quickly the injury list grew and grew with key players such as Osula, Elanga, Ramsey and Dedic added, by the time we reached Matthias Jaissle selecting his team for the seventh game of the season (Hull City) there were nine ruled out through injury. The bench for that Hull match saw Fabian Schar as the only one of the eight outfield subs to have started a Premier League match, five of the eight had never played a single minute of first team football in their careers for any team.
For a new Newcastle United Head Coach to be catapulted into this chaos only two and a half weeks before the new season, it was an impossible job he had. Then all of those injuries as well…
Yet as I say, we somehow stand here now with five wins, two draws and three losses, 8th in the Premier League and one step away from the Carabao Cup quarter-finals.
The most negative Newcastle United fans will give Matthias Jaissle no credit at all, which is pathetic. The same NUFC fans no doubt who now want us to believe that the incredible success achieved under Eddie Howe was simply him stumbling along and carrying huge luck.
Newcastle United performed really well that first week against Liverpool and Tottenham before the injuries piled up, with a few injured players back Newcastle United played well in the second half at Crystal Palace and were deserved winners.
In between it has been tough at times, both Bournemouth and Villa outplayed NUFC in the first half of each match in the second half against the Cherries it was Newcastle the better team and a deserved 2-2 draw in the end, against Villa it was United marginally the better side in the second half but lacking inspiration/quality to get the equaliser.
Leeds bullied Newcastle in the first half, though lacking the likes of Burn, Joelinton and so many others, plus Gonzalez concussed in the opening minutes, you could see how they managed to exploit that. Coventry was a most bizarre game where Newcastle created far far more clear chances and dominated, yet found ingenious ways to keep failing to score whilst gifting the first and third goals to Coventry and the ref helping with their second.
This season has been tough at times and quite clearly every win will have to be fought for and every point earned, Newcastle aren’t going to be outclassing and outplaying the best teams at the minute.
Matthias Jaissle though HAS got these Newcastle United players giving it their all for him and as the positives hopefully continue to build, more and more players back from injury AND getting fully fit, I think this NUFC Head Coach could very possibly now go from strength to strength.
Photo by The Mag
A successful first season for Matthias Jaissle would for me see him making Newcastle United competitive, capable of giving pretty much any opposition a game. We will still lose plenty of games BUT we will win plenty as well.
You have to be realistic also, a small Newcastle United squad with so many young inexperienced players, many of them summer 2026 signings, it was always going to be a huge challenge and that was even without the crazy number of injuries so far. Even at Palace, Matthias Jaissle had Livramento, Jaouen, Fernandez-Pardo and Lewis Miley ruled out, whilst the likes of Elanga and Ramsey were not yet options to start.
There have been some hysterical reactions to some of these recent matches, wanting to believe that if only Matthias Jaissle played a different formation then the small number of players that were available would have automatically turned into world beaters!
In almost every match, the quality of players that you can put on the pitch is by far the key factor. Even with all of the NUFC squad fit it isn’t currently one that is overflowing with elite ability as things stand, never mind when you have up to nine ruled out due to injury.
Matthias Jaissle will have learnt so much in these brutal three months at Newcastle United and the ten games he has overseen so far.
Whilst Newcastle United fans should have learnt by now that sometimes you need to give new players AND managers aa chance, time to adapt and understand what is needed.
The real crazy Newcastle United fans would still sack Matthias Jaissle in a heartbeat.
When I hear talk of Crystal Palace potentially going for Sean Dyche if they sack Pierre Sage, if that isn’t a reality check then I don’t know what is? I don’t think anybody could have done any better than Matthias Jaissle with the situation he stepped into and the extra issues that have then confronted him, especially the ridiculous number of injuries.