A lot of my friends believe this Newcastle United squad explains our erratic start to the season.
We lack quality in the right places, they say, and the manager is being judged for weaknesses in the players he has been given.
There is substance in that argument. But there is also a danger in stopping there.
If the Newcastle United squad is the problem, we still have to ask why this is the squad we have.
Its limitations cannot become an explanation that leaves everyone responsible for assembling and managing it beyond criticism.
After the Carabao Cup exit at Everton, I wanted to test the premise. How good are these players compared with the rest of the Premier League? Are we demanding too much of them, or accepting too little from the people directing them?
I looked at published player and team ratings, squad valuations and the club’s current personnel. My judgement was that eighth is a defensible working estimate of Newcastle’s standing on individual quality, with seventh to eleventh a reasonable range. Those positions are my synthesis, not a published forecast or a statistical confidence interval.
The central conclusion is more useful than the precise number. These measures do not identify an obvious top-four squad. Neither do they establish that Newcastle are getting everything this group can give. Expectations need to reflect the resources available; accountability must then focus on what the club does with them.
The FC 27 team ratings published by FCRadar put Arsenal on 85, Manchester City on 84, Liverpool on 83 and Manchester United on 82. Chelsea and Tottenham are on 81. Newcastle are on 79, alongside Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Sunderland. Six clubs sit above us; five share the next band. The evidence supports a group of broadly comparable squads, not a precise order within it.
These are computer-game ratings and their limitations matter. They are subjective judgements on a common scale, not scientific measurements of footballing ability. Different websites reproducing the same database do not provide independent corroboration. I would give them weight as one reference point, never treat them as a verdict.
FotMob’s squad values offer a separate, equally imperfect comparison. Newcastle stand eighth at €641 million, behind Brentford at €651 million and narrowly ahead of Palace at €635 million and Villa at €629 million. Tottenham, sixth, are valued at €951 million. Age, contracts and resale prospects influence these figures. They cannot tell us how a team ought to play. They do, however, reinforce the picture of Newcastle among a closely matched chasing group.
The internal balance is also revealing. Published unit ratings put our defence on 81, midfield on 78 and attack on 79. Hall is rated 83; Livramento, Schär, Botman and Thiaw are on 81. Nico González is also on 81, Joelinton on 80, with Barnes and Wissa both on 80. On this assessment, the defensive resources are stronger than those further forward.
That does not make any player inadequate. It does suggest that talk of “the squad” can obscure the real issue. A collection of capable footballers can still lack the balance required to produce a capable team. Recruitment has to answer that problem, and coaching has to work with it.
So my friends have grounds for questioning the squad’s immediate strength. They have not thereby established that the players are the principal cause of our inconsistency. Ratings describe attributes; they do not explain decisions, preparation or performances. An approximate eighth-place squad can be well coached or poorly coached. The ranking cannot distinguish between the two.
Matthias Jaissle must therefore be judged on the collective he builds. Are players clear about their jobs? Does the approach suit the strengths available? When opponents expose a weakness, does he adapt? A manager cannot manufacture elite quality, but he can be expected to make the quality he has count.
That judgement requires a meaningful run of performances. The win at Palace belongs in the assessment alongside the defeat at Everton. Neither should become a convenient exhibit selected to prove a conclusion already reached. Over time, we should see clearer roles, better chances and a side that is harder to play through. Patience has a purpose when it allows improvement to take hold. It becomes harder to defend when improvement cannot be identified.
The recruitment policy deserves the same scrutiny. Sky Sports reported in July that Newcastle were pursuing younger players with development and resale potential, taking inspiration from Borussia Dortmund. The logic is credible. Buying talent before its price becomes prohibitive may offer a route towards stronger competition.
But development is work and its costs arrive before its rewards. Young players need suitable roles, experienced colleagues and a stable environment. Their potential cannot be counted as present quality when setting expectations, then invoked as a reason to suspend judgement when results disappoint.
If the club chooses to exchange some immediate readiness for future potential, that is a strategic decision. Those making it must explain the sporting benefit, the timescale and how progress will be judged. Supporters can understand a trade-off. They should not have to discover it through disappointing results.
Nor should resale value quietly become the measure by which sporting progress is judged. Developing valuable players can help finance a stronger Newcastle. The test is whether the team becomes stronger as the policy matures. Otherwise, we risk becoming better at producing assets without becoming better at competing.
This approach is not without risk. Its success depends on recruitment identifying the right players, development turning potential into performance, and the manager building a team capable of competing while that work takes place. Get even one of those major elements seriously wrong and the consequences could extend well beyond missing out on Europe. We could find ourselves playing our football in the lower divisions again. That is a risk, not a prediction, but any credible long-term plan must protect the club against it. Premier League survival cannot simply be assumed while we wait for the strategy to bear fruit.
That is why responsibility needs to be specific. Players answer for their performances. The manager answers for organisation, selection and improvement. Those directing recruitment answer for the quality and balance available to him. Shared responsibility must never mean responsibility dispersed so widely that nobody has to account for the outcome.
Photo by The Mag
On this evidence, a top six finish would exceed the working baseline; Champions League qualification should not be treated as an automatic entitlement. But accepting that distinction does not oblige us to accept drift. We can recognise the squad’s limitations and still demand convincing evidence that Newcastle are overcoming them.
I have supported this club since 1965. I know that ambition alone does not win matches, and that teams can achieve far more than their individual reputations suggest. What concerns me is the possibility of lowered expectations acquiring the language of a long-term plan, without the discipline that makes a plan credible.
The squad may explain why Newcastle cannot yet compete consistently with the best. It cannot, by itself, explain whether we are moving closer to them. That is the question the manager and those running the club must answer together.
If we are being asked to accept less today in pursuit of more tomorrow, what evidence will distinguish a club building towards success from one learning to live without it?
Source footnote
Assessment dated 31 October 2026. Eighth and the seventh-to-eleventh range are the author’s synthesis, not a published forecast. Ratings and valuations are snapshots, can differ between updates and do not control for injuries, fixtures or tactical fit. Loaned-out players are excluded from the available-squad discussion. The various sources I have used were supplied to the Editor and checked by him.