Newcastle's crisis deepens as Everton win leaves Jaissle searching for answers
A home defeat to ten-man-depleted Newcastle against David Moyes's Everton has intensified pressure on Matthias Jaissle, with the club's limited pool of ready-made replacements laid bare.
Newcastle United lost 1-0 at home to Everton on Sunday, Thierno Barry scoring the only goal as Newcastle played with ten men, Guardian Football reported. It was the club's second defeat in five days under Matthias Jaissle, who has won only one of his last five matches.
Jack Grealish was absent from the Everton squad, and the Guardian suggested he may struggle to reclaim his starting place given how well David Moyes's young side performed without him.
The high-tempo plan that has stopped working
Jaissle arrived at Newcastle with no previous Premier League experience, a decision Planet Football said raised eyebrows from the outset. His approach has centred on an intense, high-pressing style, at times described as blood-and-thunder, which brought encouraging early results before opponents adjusted to it.
That adjustment appears to have happened quickly. Losing with a numerical disadvantage, as Newcastle did against Everton, is rarely a fair test of a system, but it compounds a run of results that already suggested the team had been worked out tactically. A high-press built on intensity rather than control becomes far harder to sustain once a side is down to ten men, because the compactness and rest-defence structure needed to support an aggressive front line depends on having bodies to commit to it.
There is growing speculation, according to Planet Football, that Jaissle could become the first Premier League manager sacked this season, though the publication notes the pool of realistic successors is shallow. Eddie Howe is the outstanding available candidate for any Premier League club other than Newcastle, making him an unlikely option barring an unexpected change of circumstances.
Four names carrying very different risks
Didier Deschamps is the most decorated manager currently without a job, having left the France post this summer after 14 years, three major finals and a World Cup win. His club record includes a Ligue 1 title with Marseille in 2009/10, promotion of Juventus back from Serie B after the Calciopoli scandal, and a Champions League final with Monaco in 2004. He is reportedly looking to return to club management, with Juventus said to be interested, which Planet Football suggests could make persuading him to join a relegation-threatened Premier League club in the lower reaches a difficult sell.
Julian Nagelsmann is another option, despite a reputation dented by unsuccessful spells at Bayern Munich and with Germany. He is tactically flexible, having used a 4-2-3-1 at Bayern built around high pressing, and Planet Football argues a struggling national-team generation, rather than his own limitations, explains some of his recent setbacks.
Kieran McKenna is the obvious young candidate likely to be linked to most vacancies after his work at Ipswich. Doubts remain over whether he can prove himself at the top end of the Premier League, and he left Ipswich in part to spend more time with his family in Suffolk, a significant distance from Tyneside.
Cesc Fabregas would be the appointment Newcastle supporters find most exciting. The former Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder guided Como to Champions League qualification last season but is also a shareholder at the Serie A club, which complicates any departure. His teams favour possession-based football with high pressing and a 4-2-3-1 shape, close to what Newcastle already use, and he has said he wants to manage in the Premier League, having made 350 appearances in the division as a player.
What the shortlist says about Newcastle's position
Taken together, the four names outline a club weighing experience against risk. Deschamps offers a trophy-laden pedigree but little appetite, by Planet Football's account, for a rebuild outside Europe's elite competitions. Nagelsmann and Fabregas both arrive with reputational questions of their own, even if their systems would require minimal adaptation from what Newcastle already run. McKenna remains unproven at this level and geographically reluctant.
None of that resolves the more immediate problem. Newcastle's underlying issue, a pressing identity that worked in short bursts before opponents solved it, needs addressing regardless of who is in the dugout. Until then, defeats like the one suffered against Everton will keep arriving, and the question of who replaces Jaissle will keep being asked without an obvious answer.