I have been thinking about Matthias Jaissle and Newcastle United recruitment in recent times.
This comes after reading a few articles recently about Premier League managers who have lost their jobs over the past 18 months.
What really struck me was how often changing the manager appears to have made remarkably little difference.
I did notice some exceptions though.
Tottenham, unfortunately, are beginning to look a bit more coherent. It’s early days, but it does look like they’re improving. This got me thinking to what have they done differently, and importantly, what can Newcastle United learn from it?
The first obvious answer is they’ve spent a lot of money. But then, so have we…
Tottenham spent around £313 million (according to the various reports) in the summer transfer window, compared with Newcastle United’s £268 million (based on the various reporting).
Not an insignificant difference but hardly a world apart either.
Dig a little deeper, though, and there’s a fundamental difference between spending hundreds of millions on established Premier League players and spending hundreds of millions on players you hope will eventually become established Premier League players.
I think this distinction goes a long way towards explaining where we find ourselves today.
My first, and fairly obvious question, is…
Has recruitment been good enough at Newcastle United?
For me, the answer is no. Not even close!
Newcastle United have lost four world-class players in the last 18 months: Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimarães, Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali.
These were players operating at the highest level of the Premier League and proven international footballers. That is a ridiculous amount of quality to remove from any team. Then have a look at what we’ve brought in.
Not just this summer, but across the last couple of transfer windows. Newcastle United have thrown enormous amounts of money at Yoane Wissa, Anthony Elanga and Nick Woltemade, the latter being our record signing.
We’ve subsequently loaned Nick Woltemade to Juventus, where he’s barely able to establish himself in the first team. On top of that, we’ve brought in a number of young players who have very limited senior first-team experience anywhere in the world, never mind the Premier League.
This isn’t to suggest they’re not good enough. Some of them may turn out to be excellent. Sean Steur, for me, is the outstanding prospect of this group. But you have to recognise there’s a difference between potential and proven quality.
Potential doesn’t win you matches tomorrow.
Of our summer signings, I’d argue that González and Dedić were the two obvious first-team-ready acquisitions, both of whom appear to have been Matthias Jaissle picks. Dedić is still adjusting, but there’s certainly a very good player in there.
González is a bit more complicated. His passing range is excellent, but he’s glacially slow, struggles to beat opponents and relies heavily on movement ahead of him to be effective. Something he had in spades at Manchester City… At Newcastle United? Not so much. Watch him when he receives the ball. He looks up, searches for a forward pass and, more often than not, finds four attacking players standing there looking at him. When somebody actually makes a run through the channels, we’ve seen what he can do. Some of our better goalscoring opportunities have come from precisely those situations. His limitations are very real (comparisons to Rodri are laughable), but I think they’re also exaggerated by the lack of movement from the players ahead of him.
That’s a problem for Matthias Jaissle to solve.
IMAGO / Sports Press Photo
Next, look at the balance of the squad. We spent heavily on Touré, a left winger, when we already have Barnes, who is very difficult to drop because he’s practically our only consistent source of goals. Also, at the sort of money we’re spending, surely we should be recruiting players capable of going straight into the first team?
Meanwhile, on the right, we’re still playing Jacob Murphy. I personally like Murphy, but he’s not getting any younger, and we’re hardly addressing the long-term problem by continuing to rely on him. At this point, though, I’m not sure we’ve got many options, aside from Elanga, who, for me, simply isn’t a particularly good footballer. He’s incredibly quick but his technical ability is poor. Yet another example of a very expensive signing that hasn’t delivered what we needed.
Then there’s Bamba. We spent £30 million, potentially rising to £36 million, on a young defensive midfielder when we were absolutely desperate for someone “ready to go” in that position. He hasn’t started a league match.
We have thrown an enormous amount of money at goalkeepers, young midfielders and attacking prospects, but we haven’t assembled a balanced first eleven. We continue to buy players for the future when we actually need players who can play now.
And this, for me, is the concern….
Are Newcastle United recruiting players to build a functioning football team, or are we acquiring footballers the recruitment department believes might become valuable assets at some point in the future?
They are two very different things and they lead to two very different outcomes on the pitch this season.
Back to Tottenham then and what have they done differently?
Take a look at at their recruitment this summer. Yes, I know they’ve spent a lot of money. Around £313 million, compared with our £268 million – but look at what they’ve bought.
Tonali, Fernandes, Sávio and Van Hecke are all established senior professionals with significant experience of playing at a high level in the Premier League. They knew what they were buying – first team ready players. It’s not just those four. The players they’ve recruited are, in general, capable of contributing immediately. They’ve also added several experienced players on free transfers, which to me, seems like a pretty solid transfer strategy, particularly if you’ve got a team whose first eleven needs strengthening today. The difference is that Tottenham have spent heavily on established players. We’ve spent heavily on potential and development projects. That distinction matters.
When we compare the money spent by the two clubs and conclude that their managers have been given equivalent resources, I think we are missing the point. They haven’t been given equivalent resources. They’ve been given players at very different stages of their careers, with very different levels of experience and readiness to perform in the Premier League.
My next question is…
Has Matthias Jaissle been given enough time?
In my view, absolutely not. The bloke arrived 18 days before the Premier League season started and he has subsequently managed ten league matches and pretty much achieved the same outcomes as we did last season. However, in that time, he’s been trying to implement a substantial tactical change, moving from a 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1 with a double pivot, whilst arguably, losing our best three players over the summer. This is a change that, as recently as the end of last season, plenty of us were crying out for.
Photo by The Mag
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but people on The Mag cannot seriously tell me that moving away from Eddie Howe’s 4-3-3 wasn’t one of the main topics of conversation for months. We wanted change. Well, now we’ve got it. And it needs time to be embedded.
This isn’t a minor tactical adjustment either. It significantly changes the responsibilities of the midfielders, the movement of the attacking players and the way we operate both in and out of possession. Add to that the fact that Matthias Jaissle is trying to teach this system to a squad containing several young players who are also adapting to a new club, a new league and, in some cases, a new country. Yes, of course, we’re not playing European football, I hear you say. And we’ve had the international breaks.
Well, not really is my view. When you account for the players away on international duty, then add the injury list, Jaissle is practically left with a five-a-side team to train. What’s he supposed to do? Run tactical classroom sessions with players recovering from torn tendons while the remaining five have a kickabout in the backyard? My view is that international breaks don’t do us any favours. If anything, they disrupt the rhythm of the team and what Jaissle is trying to achieve.
I’m not suggesting he should be given unlimited time. But judging him after ten matches, under these circumstances, seems ridiculous.
Next question…
Does Matthias Jaissle have tactical responsibility?
Of course he does – and I believe criticism of the manager in this area is entirely legitimate.
The 4-2-3-1 has exposed some significant weaknesses in our midfield. In particular, our number ten is absolutely critical in that system. In my view, it is a linchpin role. That role needs to contribute to midfield, provide an additional passing option, press when needed and help prevent the two deeper midfielders from being overwhelmed.
What the number ten does both in and out of possession is fundamental to making the system work.
So what are we doing? We’re effectively playing a second striker there – often Wissa, sometimes Willock and neither of them are up to that role. What we’re seeing is the double pivot becoming isolated far too often. Opposition teams create numerical advantages in central midfield, and our attacking players become disconnected from the players trying to supply them.
Matthias Jaissle has to solve that problem.
Does that mean he should abandon the system? No, I don’t think so. It’s the football he wants us to play, and I think we need to be patient while the players learn it. The alternative is to abandon the approach after ten games and start again. I’m not entirely convinced that would benefit us either. We’ve seen plenty of clubs do precisely that. Sack the manager, appoint somebody with a different philosophy, recruit another collection of players.
Rinse and repeat. At some point, you have to commit to a direction and for me, that means committing to Matthias Jaissle and the system he’s trying to establish – that said, I do think he needs to show a bit more tactical flexibility.
As I’ve already said, the number ten is critical in this formation and Wissa or Willock are not the answer to that problem. In my view, we need two players in January: a proper number nine (obviously!) and a genuine number ten who can transition between midfield and attack, both in and out of possession – someone who can help the midfield when we’re under pressure and support the striker when we’re attacking. Getting this right needs time, and it needs players capable of executing the system.
Photo by The Mag
This brings me to…
Have Newcastle United actually got a recruitment strategy?
I keep coming back to this, and the answer almost invariably seems to be that, if we have one, it isn’t a particularly good one.
Dedić and González appear to have been recruited with Jaissle’s approval. Most of the other summer acquisitions arrived before he was appointed. We’ve effectively assembled a squad for one set of circumstances, appointed a manager who wants to play a different system, and then expected everything to come together almost immediately. And, if I am being honest, this isn’t a problem confined to one transfer window.
Look at the money we’ve spent over the past two years. Look at the players we’ve bought, the positions we’ve prioritised, the players we’ve subsequently moved on and the gaps that still exist in the squad – Financially, we simply cannot continue doing this. We don’t have the revenue to keep making these sorts of expensive mistakes and we now appear to be in a position where we can’t even recover the fees we’ve spent by selling some of these players.
Who’s going to pay the sort of money we paid for Wissa or Woltemade or Elanga? The answer is probably nobody.
Poor Newcastle United recruitment has consequences.
And right now, we’re seeing those consequences. It restricts what we can do in subsequent transfer windows. It limits our ability to strengthen the positions that genuinely need attention, particularly the number nine and number ten. And it ultimately leaves Jaissle trying to fit square pegs into round holes.
Jaissle has inherited a squad that has lost an extraordinary amount of established quality, has been assembled at enormous expense, and still appears poorly balanced and more focused on the future than today.
This is not his doing. It’s the consequence of the club’s recruitment strategy and replacing Jaissle won’t automatically resolve it.
So, back to my question…
Is it the (Newcastle United) manager?
These are the questions I’ve been pondering.
Has Newcastle United recruitment been good enough?
No. Not even close.
Has Matthias Jaissle had enough time?
No.
Does Matthias Jaissle still have tactical responsibilities?
Yes, absolutely.
But there’s a fourth question, and for me it’s the most important.
If we gave Matthias Jaissle another £150 million tomorrow, would the club actually have a coherent plan for spending it?
Looking at what we’ve bought over the past two years, the positions we’ve failed to strengthen and the quality we’ve allowed to leave, I think the answer is a resounding no.
And this worries me considerably more than whether our manager Matthias Jaissle has got a perfectly balanced formation after ten games.