Some interesting comments from this BBC Sport pundit on Newcastle United and Matthias Jaissle’s style of play.
Chris Sutton speaking as United prepare to play their first away match of the 2026/27 season.
Newcastle United away to Tottenham in the Premier League.
A 5.30pm kick-off on Saturday as Matthias Jaissle takes charge of his third competitive Newcastle United match.
Newcastle missing out on a deserved three points against Liverpool with that last gasp penalty award that came beyond the five minutes the referee had found some way to add in the first place, considering not a single delay for any player to be treated on the pitch in the entire second half.
That very promising performance and 2-2 draw then followed up by Matthias Jaissle’s first ever Newcastle United win, a 3-2 victory against West Brom in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.
Ahead of Saturday against Tottenham, the BBC Sport pundit now declaring: “It looks like Newcastle are going to be the counter-attack kings this season. They’ve brought Nico Gonzalez in but whether he’ll start I’m not sure but they have got pace as well. Anthony Elanga scored last week having not scored at all in the Premier League last season but I have to say I haven’t got a clue what this will be. I’m going to go for a Spurs win but I couldn’t tell you why.”
A bit early to be predicting how Newcastle United will play throughout this season, a lot will depend on the opposition.
However, those two superb goals against Liverpool did emphasise the threat Newcastle United can pose with the pace in the team that the scousers struggled to deal with.
Chris Sutton turning his attention to Tottenham and having predicted a 2-1 victory over Newcastle United, the BBC Sport pundit declaring: “We all thought this was going to be Tottenham’s season but their defeat by Brentford was one of the extreme results at the weekend. Roberto de Zerbi’s said after the game that the players weren’t fit enough, lost all the duels, weren’t physical enough then used excuses about the pre-season and players coming in after the World Cup.”
Last weekend Newcastle United were excellent and deserved to win, a draw at the very minimum. At the same time, Tottenham were woeful as they were hammered 3-0 by Brentford and it should have been an even wider defeat such was the Bees’ superiority.
The excuses from De Zerbi were embarrassing and hopefully he will be making similar level ones after Saturday’s match.
Interesting to look back at what Chris Sutton said before those opening weekend games.
The BBC Sport pundit confidently predicted a 3-1 defeat for Newcastle United and said: “I don’t think Liverpool will have any problems up front…Alexander Isak will get quite a reception – and not in a good way – from the home crowd but I do think he will shine for Liverpool this year, starting on Sunday.”
As for Tottenham before they played at Brentford, Chris Sutton predicted a 1-1 draw and stated: “There is a lot of excitement surrounding Spurs and I understand why…I am really looking forward to seeing Spurs under Roberto de Zerbi and the expectation will be that they do well. Without European football, they must be thinking about the top six.”
The opening weekend of the Premier League season saw many matches not work out how the experts/pundits predicted. Tottenham will be big favourites to win on Saturday but very interesting to see what the reality proves to be when they face Newcastle United.