Matthias Jaissle watched on as Newcastle United lost to Leeds United.
Monday night at Elland Road and a tough night for everyone of an NUFC persuasion.
Newcastle United struggling to cope with the physicality of their opponent.
Leeds United taking full advantage due to a mixture of good play, good luck, poor defending from their opponents.
Also an ever growing injury list for Matthias Jaissle, as once Nico Gonzalez was forced off on 19 minutes due to concussion, it meant the Newcastle boss was missing seven players.
With such a young squad shorn of many of the more experienced players that still remain at the club, Matthias Jaissle explaining after the 4-1 defeat: “That is the Premier League. It was clear from the start and I have said many times, we will have ups and downs and challenges along the way. Tonight we faced that challenge. It is really tough. Difficult to digest, but this is a chance to learn, because there’s not long until the next match at home to show the right reaction.”
Matthias Jaissle going on to add: “You need to bring the fundamentals on the pitch against a physical and strong team. Leeds are so intense, especially at home and we couldn’t match that physicality in the first half. That was a key element. No excuses, we have to learn from it. Injuries are also a challenge that we need to overcome and will. There will be no issue with confidence.”
As for that ever growing list of injuries, it was a sobering breakdown that the Newcastle United Head Coach gave post-match.
Nico Gonzalez becoming now the seventh unavailable Newcastle United player when he was forced off with concussion, Matthias Jaissle on the decision to take the midfielder off: “With Nico, as the manager, and also we as a club, we have the responsibility. If he had that knockout feeling, as you all saw, then we have to be responsible enough to take him off the pitch. Even though he looked fine afterwards, there are also some rules, especially for that occasion. Independent of how important he is and how important it is to win a match, we are human beings as well and we take that seriously. Therefore, we took the decision to take him off the pitch.”
Matthias Jaissle explaining why he didn’t bring Jacob Ramsey on: “He felt his thigh in the warm-up, so he was not able to play tonight. That was the next challenge. Tonight, it was a little bit the story. Many things came together.”
Ahead of the match it was a shock for Newcastle United fans to find out that Anthony Elanga wasn’t in the matchday squad.
Ahead of kick-off the Newcastle United Head Coach explained his absence: “Unfortunately he is injured and we need to investigate further and in more detail, to find out how long he will be out. We will miss him and hope he is back to play quickly. It could be long-term, we hope not. He will get another MRI next week and we will see.”
After the Leeds defeat, Matthias Jaissle once again asked about the situation with the former Forest winger: “Obviously, Elanga is struggling with an injury, we now need to investigate further how serious it is, but at the moment it does not look that good.”
An early season injury crisis and at least seven Newcastle United players with question marks over their availability now:
Dan Burn – Ankle/foot
Joelinton – Thigh
Jacob Ramsey – Thigh
William Osula – Ankle
Nico Gonzalez – Concussion
Ewen Jaouen – Ankle
Anthony Elanga -Unknown
Matthias Jaissle then asked whether he thinks any of his injured players could return for the Hull City match on Saturday and the NUFC Head Coach replying: “It doesn’t look good at the moment.”
The only positive with this shocking injury list at such an early stage of the season, is that after this Hull match it is 23 days until the following game away at Coventry City on Monday 12 October, due to this lengthy international break.