Matthias Jaissle watched on as Newcastle United lost 3-1 to Everton.
A friendly played at Murrayfield only 11 days ahead of the new Premier League season kicking off against Liverpool.
It wasn’t that Everton were that much better than Newcastle United, if at all.
More a case of it looking like two not that great sides and Newcastle not looking close to what will be needed when the proper stuff kicks off.
No need to panic just yet but when you are making mistakes in defence and not carrying a lot of threat at the other end…not a great combination for a team and squad that is experiencing a huge rebuild and a new manager recently installed.
Brutal honesty from Matthias Jaissle, telling journalists: “You all see the matches…you are smart enough to see the needs in the squad. We are aware of what we need [in the remainder of the transfer window]. Let’s see now. There is still some time. You can’t change things really quickly, it is a really young team at the moment so there are vacuums where players need to step up. We fill these positions we lost with the experienced players but that’s also the process.”
Having lost the quality and experience of the likes of Bruno, Gordon, Trippier and Tonali, it was always going to be tough.
With two keepers signed along with a 20 year old winger, and two midfielders aged 18 and 20, as Mattias Jaissle states, it is going to take time AND more signings to get United into competitive shape.
Newcastle United probably need at least three or four more signings by 11pm on 1 September, with certainly at least one experienced midfielder surely to come in and a right-back, but as the new manager goes on to say, any further signings made in this window can’t be expected to start immediately and perform at their best levels.
Matthias Jaissle: “If you make new signings at the end of a transfer window, they usually need time. Usually it takes time to adapt to the Premier League. These are all things we consider but we are all still positive and we all want to go in the right direction. We have these goals and there will be many stones along the way thrown in that path, but we need to get rid of them.”
A massive help for Matthias Jaissle would be getting some big players back available.
Dan Burn is now back training after his extended post-world cup break.
Tino Livramento recovering from injury but not expected to be back in time for Liverpool.
Matthias Jaissle giving more positive news on two players who could be back in the very near future: “Fabian Schar is on the way back now, hopefully in the next days he will be included in team training and then we need to see if he gets some minutes at the weekend. Like with Fabian, we are hoping that in the next few days Lewis Miley can take part in the team sessions and hopefully he will get some minutes [in one of the friendlies at the weekend].”
Newcastle United schedule:
Saturday 15 August 2026
Newcastle United v Bayer Leverkusen friendly at St James’ Park, 3pm.
Sunday 16 August 2026
Newcastle United v Strasbourg friendly at St James’ Park, 4pm.
Sunday 23 August 2026
Newcastle v Liverpool 4.30pm – United’s first Premier League match of the season