This is exactly what's gone wrong with Newcastle United - and who should take the blame

How early is too early for a fanbase to panic? And how swiftly should a struggling new manager be judged as a failure? These probably aren’t the questions anybody at Newcastle United wanted to be asking by the beginning of November, but they’re questions that are beginning to become quite pressing.

Monday evening’s 1-0 defeat to Everton at St. James’ Park left Matthias Jaissle’s side just four points above the Premier League relegation zone after four defeats in five games. Jeers rained down after the final whistle and pressure is starting to mount. But is Jaissle really to blame for Newcastle’s poor form – or did a turbulent summer simply leave him with too much to do?

Newcastle’s summer of struggle is bleeding into the new season

When it was announced that Eddie Howe had unexpectedly resigned as Newcastle’s head coach over the summer, the mood on Tyneside was largely one of relief. For all that the club’s fans appreciated the strides the team had taken during his tenure, there was a sense that he was running out of steam. Many felt that a fresh start was required.

Jaissle’s appointment was meant to provide that, but although things got underway in reasonably promising fashion in terms of results – Newcastle started the season with a five-game unbeaten streak – there were a few worrying signs right from the beginning.

Newcastle were abysmal in pre-season and while they the scorelines started to look good when the season proper got going, performances were poor. Results are now simply aligning with the way that they’re actually playing.

One damning statistic which underlines the point is that Newcastle have only achieved a higher expected goals total than one of their nine Premier League opponents to date, Coventry City. They lost that game 4-1 anyway.

Statistics can only ever tell a small part of the story, but over time the xG model tends to tell the truth. Most teams regress to the mean eventually. The numbers suggest that Newcastle have been the second best side almost every time they’ve stepped onto the field against top-flight opposition. The table is slowly starting to reflect that fact.

Jaissle’s contributions to Newcastle’s form will inevitably be the subject of much of the hand-wringing, but there also have to be questions about Newcastle’s recruitment over the course of a deeply disruptive summer.

Star players have left and been replaced largely by youngsters. Anthony Gordon is gone and both of his prospective replacements, Matías Fernández-Pardo and Bazoumana Touré, are youngsters. The loss of Bruno Guimarães and Sandro Tonali ripped the guts out of the midfield, and while Nico González, Aladji Bamba and Sean Steur may become major contributors down the line, they can scarcely be expected to instantaneously replace two distinguished veterans.

Jaissle has, simply put, inherited a far weaker squad than the one his predecessor had. The decision to sign so many young talents may pay dividends by 2030, by which time chief executive David Hopkinson believes the club should be “in the debate about being the top club in the world,” but it looks like a mistake in the short term.

Other areas of the squad which needed more attention than they got. Many of their centre-backs are either getting long in the tooth or have been hobbled by persistent injuries, while they are rather thin at full-back too. A new centre-forward seemed like a self-evident necessity after the departure of Nick Woltemade, but the only new signing who can play in that position is the versatile Fernández-Pardo, who has yet to score for his new side.

Jaissle, in short, has probably been handed the wrong tools with which to make a charge back towards the European places, which is the standard that was set during the Howe years, and there are questions that need to be asked of director of football Ross Wilson too. But the mistakes made in recruitment may not entirely explain Newcastle’s recent form away.

Jaissle’s Newcastle have become a team bereft of identity and ideas

Jaissle, now the second-youngest head coach in the Premier League after his compatriot Fabian Hürzeler, enjoyed considerable success in the Saudi Pro League with a direct, hard-pressing style of football which should have ensured a degree of tactical continuity from his predecessor. This wasn’t just meant to be a forward-thinking appointment, but also a relatively seamless one.

Instead, it’s hard to work out precisely what Jaissle wants to do with Newcastle, and whatever it is he doesn’t seem to be getting his message across – an issue he alluded to after Monday’s defeat to Everton.

“It wasn’t the plan to shoot the long balls, it’s important to say that,” he said during his post-match press conference. “If you just play long balls, it’s not the style [William] Osula prefers and that was not the plan.

“We need to analyse this in depth, why we could not start the game how we planned. I’m responsible for that, to make it work. It was not good enough and it was not brave enough to penetrate the last line.”

The implication of all that is that either he isn’t communicating his tactical intentions to his team well enough, or that his team aren’t well-drilled enough to stick to the plan when they get knocked out of stride by the opposition. Either way, it is indeed Jaissle’s responsibility to ensure that doesn’t happen. You can’t blame the recruitment.

Jaissle may well not intend for his team to play long balls forward, but it’s not certain what his preferred means of approaching the opposing goal is. Newcastle are in the bottom half of the Premier League for successful long passes, short passes, and dribbles. There doesn’t seem to be a coherent plan of attack in the final third. This is a team devoid of tactical identity.

The only constant has been that Newcastle have played very wide and focused their attacks down the flanks. Not only is that patently not working – only two teams in the top flight have a lower total xG so far – but the aggressive use of the wing-backs and the lack of protection provided by a spaced-out midfield is leaving space in behind. Only two teams have allowed more xG, as well.

The stats make for bleak reading, and are consistent with a team that could very easily be sucked into a relegation battle. The fans are growing restless, and the players don’t seem to know what their gameplan is. It’s not a recipe for a lengthy spell in charge.

“We have to stick together now, we have to show unity,” Jaissle added on Monday. “It’s the only way.”

Except that it isn’t the only way, because changing the coach is an alternative that’s available to his paymasters. They must now decide how much time Jaissle should get to steady the ship and to get his ideas across to a depleted squad. Whatever they choose to do, however, they must also reflect on the ways in which they, too, have let the club down over the summer.