Newcastle are at a crossroads - can little-known manager Matthias Jaissle find a new way?

There was a time, a couple of years ago, when it was rumoured a double Champions League winner was Eddie Howe’s probable replacement at Newcastle. Rubbish, according to some close to the club: they were not going for Jose Mourinho. Instead, after Howe has gone now, a double Asian Champions League winner is taking over, in Matthias Jaissle.

Young, German, relatively unknown and an advocate of pressing, Jaissle represents a very different kind of appointment. The second manager brought in since Newcastle’s Saudi takeover, the 38-year-old joins a club at a crossroads; one interpretation is that they are changing direction, another that they are going backwards.

Brilliant a job as Howe did, the scale of the task Jaissle inherits does not merely reflect the difficulty of following the first manager to take a domestic trophy to Tyneside since the 1950s or of managing expectations.

When Newcastle start their season against Liverpool, they will almost certainly be without the four players of most pedigree who started the equivalent fixture last August: Kieran Trippier and Anthony Gordon, the only Englishmen to score in World Cup semi-finals since 1990, and Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes, Newcastle’s two classiest midfielders in decades.

Guimaraes’ probable move to Arsenal, following Tonali’s £100m transfer to Tottenham and Gordon’s £69m switch to Barcelona, will create multiple holes. Part of Jaissle’s job will be one of persuasion: ensuring that three big sales this summer, after the veteran Trippier left when his contract expired, do not become a rush to the exits, with players such as Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento following.

A side that had a surfeit of leaders could soon look short of them. Dan Burn is the logical successor to Guimaraes as captain, even if the long-term ideal may be to pair Sven Botman with Malick Thiaw in the heart of the defence. But as Newcastle overdoes it on youth, there are few other alternatives as skipper.

A midfield that ranked among the best is no more, with the departure of the two most stylish components, only Joelinton remaining and questions if he may be in decline. The arrivals of 20-year-old Aladji Bamba and 18-year-old Sean Steur show Newcastle have started to build their next-gen midfield; but each has only had a season of regular first-team football. They are long-term acquisitions, but Newcastle will have short-term imperatives. Some sort of unit is required: the precocious Lewis Miley should be in it, but there are doubts about Joe Willock’s future and Jacob Ramsey had an underwhelming first year in the north-east.

And even with high-calibre players, Newcastle were reliant on Guimaraes. Since he broke into the team in 2022, they only won two league games without the Brazilian. He was their top scorer in the top flight last season and their talisman.

In attack, Jaissle is confronted with the problem that seemed to confound Howe: what to do with the £125m duo who were bought with the proceeds of Alexander Isak’s sale. Had Howe stayed, the probability was that Will Osula would have started the season as the first-choice striker, not the £55m Yoane Wissa or the £69m Nick Woltemade. The Congolese had a good World Cup but scored one goal in 19 league games for Newcastle; the German sometimes ended up as a No 10 or a No 8 under Howe during a spell of one in 26 in all competitions.

Anthony Elanga was a third unsuccessful attacking addition last summer, though, like Wissa, he showed some of his ability at the World Cup. Gordon’s sale should at least resolve a problem Newcastle created for themselves: he and Harvey Barnes were both best suited to the left flank and now the latter, perhaps the best finisher at the club, should be starting, though the £42m Bazoumana Toure has also arrived.

But he is one of four newcomers who cost more than £100m between them but are aged 18 or 20; Newcastle’s change in recruitment policy may have been enforced by financial regulations, and a Uefa fine for breaching spending caps, but it means that both they need to improve the emerging talents they have bought and get results in the meantime.

In goal, it is notable that Howe’s perennial target James Trafford has eluded them; enter Ewen Jaouen and, probably, Lukas Hornicek, the latter seemingly to start and presumably to prompt Nick Pope’s exit.

But the rebuilding feels unfinished: with Trippier going, they lack alternatives to Hall and Livramento in the full-back roles. With Guimaraes going, they may need another midfielder. For now, centre-back may be the only position where Newcastle have both proven quality and quantity.

Elsewhere, they have imported potential but have ended up selling successful signings and keeping some so far unsuccessful ones. Howe ultimately joined the ranks of managers who constructed one terrific team but not a second at the same club. Whatever the current squad becomes, for now the starting 11 could look Newcastle’s weakest since Howe kept them up in 2022.

They come off a demoralising second half of last season, are further jolted by Howe’s decision to step away and begin the campaign with potentially chastening reunions with Isak and Tonali. There is a lot that could go wrong.

The counter-argument is that much has gone right in Jaissle’s coaching career. Newcastle can look at his win percentages with Liefering, RB Salzburg and Al-Ahli – 64, 68 and 65 respectively – and hope for something similar.

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