Dan Burn playing as a striker for Newcastle United.
This has been a huge topic of conversation it seems for many fans and indeed those in the media.
Dan Burn playing up front for Newcastle United against Aston Villa.
This has been used by numerous people since Saturday as final ‘proof’ of how bad things are at NUFC.
Along the lines of ‘proof’ of how clueless Matthias Jaissle, how rubbish the Newcastle United team is, how terrible the transfer policy is, and so on.
I wasn’t intending to write anything about it and just let it go but then I saw the following on The Mag this morning.
I haven’t much time due to busy with work but I felt I had to reply to this…
From an article today (Monday 19 October 2026) on The Mag, ‘Newcastle United striker problem’ by Oden Hudson: ‘Let’s start with the most obvious sign that the club has an issue in forward areas – we ended the [Aston Villa] game with Dan Burn at striker. A comical decision that not even the most rogue Football Manager player would dare consider, this is an abhorrently dreadful and comical sign that we have truly failed to address our issues up top over the summer.’
As I said, I haven’t much time but wanted to make a few points.
The way this writer and others are going on, you would think Matthias Jaissle had played Dan Burn as a striker for most of this Aston Villa match.
The reality is that Dan Burn came on in the 90th minute for Joelinton, who was knackered after starting his first competitive game in more than five months.
Having trailed at the break, Newcastle United were the better team in the second half but struggled to break down an Aston Villa defence that was now set. Defending deep, Villa were very difficult to play through, whilst crosses into the box were getting zero joy as Villa’s tall defenders headed them all away, or Suzuki dealt with them.
Suzuki had only had to make one (world class) save from that Sven Botman effort and we could all see United were getting nowhere as added time approached.
So Matthias Jaissle throwing Dan Burn on for the added time minutes in the hope he might cause a bit of chaos in the Villa penalty area, win the odd header that the rest of the United players had failed to do. It almost worked as well a couple of promising situations and one moment in particular, where if the ball had fallen more kindly then a Newcastle player (can’t remember who) would have had a huge clear chance from only seven or eight yards or so.
I can’t see anything wrong with doing this, chucking Dan Burn up front for the last few minutes. I didn’t have a problem with it when I was at the match on Saturday and I still don’t.
What I really have a problem with is those Newcastle United fans and some in the media making out that this was the most ridiculous thing in the world and no other manager or team had ever done such a thing in the history of the game.
The fact is that countless other managers have done the same.
I have seen Virgil van Dijk sent up front late on in loads of Liverpool matches.
The same with Harry Maguire at Manchester United.
Indeed, ahead of the World Cup finals this summer, a big debate was whether Thomas Tuchel should take Dan Burn or Harry Maguire. Neither were seen as going to be starting the England games but the key thing the media all agreed on was they could be brought on late in matches to help defend a lead, or to be thrown up front if they were desperate for a goal late on and struggling to create chances. Not playing as a striker for a long time but in the very final stages hanging around up front and a chance to try something different, win a key header maybe, cause some chaos.
Matthias Jaissle wasn’t daft for doing what he did with Dan Burn on Saturday, he would have been daft if he didn’t give it a try in the circumstances, it was a brave decision considering just how ridiculous the reaction has been from some.