Newcastle held the ball for most of a second half in which they never made a clear chance, and Villa’s single moment before the break was enough.

On 36 minutes, João Gomes’s cross finds Johan Manzambi, and the Aston Villa midfielder rises to head in the only goal of the evening.

Of course it is him.

Manzambi, a Switzerland international, turned 21 on Wednesday and marked it with a goal in Villa’s 6-0 Champions League win over Fenerbahçe. In July he was Newcastle’s target: a £49m fee was reportedly agreed with Freiburg before he chose Villa instead, and Unai Emery’s club made him their record signing at a reported £59.5m. Now he scores again, in front of 52,626 people at St James’ Park, 93 short of a full house, on an 8°C evening. Emery will praise his “skills and intelligence” afterwards, and the physical work he does to help Villa defend.

That goal decides the result; the evening around it falls into two halves that hardly resemble each other.

Before the break

Villa have the ball and keep it. They finish the half with 60% possession and 257 passes to Newcastle’s 168.

Newcastle get the first shot away, a Harvey Barnes effort on seven minutes that is blocked. Two minutes later Villa break and Nicolas Jackson, their striker, shoots; Lukáš Horníček saves. On 18 minutes Joelinton is booked for a tackle on Manzambi and Sven Botman for a high, reckless challenge on Jackson. VAR checks Botman’s for serious foul play and leaves the yellow card standing. Jackson says afterwards that it was so high he nearly broke his leg; Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp thinks it should have been red.

Newcastle’s best spell comes from dead balls. Yoane Wissa heads a corner at goal on 23, shoots from another set piece on 26, and on 33 Botman heads a set piece at goal while Wissa shoots again in the same minute. Four attempts in ten minutes: three blocked, one off target, and together worth 0.14 expected goals (xG), the model’s measure of chance quality, where 1.0 would be a certain goal. A total that low means the chances keep arriving and almost none of them are likely to go in.

Three minutes later, Villa score.

Until then, the chance count is level enough: Newcastle have 0.21 xG from six shots, Villa 0.31 from four. Jaissle will call the opening half-hour a good one, and the numbers give him some support. He will also admit his side were shaky after the goal, and that it came too easily, with a man lost in the box and no pressure on the cross.

Villa almost make it two before the break. Emiliano Buendía, Villa’s number 10, hits the post with a shot the model rates at just over one chance in five. Villa reach the interval with 0.90 xG from six shots; Newcastle with 0.21 from six, none on target. St James’ Park boos them off.

After the break

Emery moves first, sending on the Scotland midfielder John McGinn for Alysson Edward at the interval. Newcastle respond four minutes into the restart.

On 49 minutes, Botman, the Dutch centre-half, shoots with his left foot from a set piece, and Zion Suzuki, Villa’s goalkeeper, gets his fingertips to it. It is the first Newcastle shot on target of the night. It is also the last. Newcastle fire nine more efforts, five blocked and four off target, and Suzuki is never asked to save another.

From here Newcastle have the ball: 59% of it, 113 passes in Villa’s half to 62, 24 touches in Villa’s box to 18. Villa’s passing accuracy drops to 74%.

Villa answer with bodies. They win 73% of the ground duels and make 17 tackles to Newcastle’s seven. Their clearances reach 24. In a half where Newcastle foul eight times and collect four yellow cards (Nico González on 53, Wissa on 55, William Osula on 78, Malick Thiaw on 86), Villa foul twice.

On 56 minutes Matthias Jaissle sends on Bazoumana Touré and Osula for Matias Fernandez-Pardo and Joseph Willock. A flurry follows nine minutes later. Wissa heads off target on 65. Osula, ten minutes into his night, does the same a minute later. On 69, Barnes and Wissa both shoot and both are blocked. Four attempts in five minutes, and Suzuki barely moves.

Emery’s reply on 72 is three changes at once: Ibrahim Mbaye, a young forward, Ross Barkley and Germany midfielder Leon Goretzka replace Manzambi, Gomes and Buendía. Villa’s best moments now come on the counter. Jackson shoots on 73. Barkley follows a minute later and forces Horníček into a save. Villa finish the half with 0.67 xG from nine shots, four of them on the break.

Newcastle’s two best chances come in consecutive minutes. On 84, Barnes, who has ten goal involvements in 13 Premier League games against Villa, shoots from open play and is blocked. The data rates it at 0.16 xG, the biggest chance Newcastle create all night, roughly one in six. On 85, a Newcastle break ends with Wissa shooting off target (0.13).

Neither forces Suzuki into a save.

At 90 minutes Jaissle replaces Joelinton with Daniel Burn, at 201cm the tallest man in the squad, and sends the centre-half up front. It is a tactical approach for the added time, Jaissle will explain, an all-out push. Burn, he adds, is still regaining fitness after a long spell out, and he hopes to see him back in his natural position soon. Six minutes are added. González shoots on 90+1 and again on 90+5, and both are blocked. The last act of the match is a shot worth 0.02 xG.

The final whistle brings a second round of boos. Jaissle says afterwards that supporters are entitled to them: they come hoping to celebrate, and the team could not give them that.

Wissa finishes with seven shots and none on target; the only Newcastle effort to reach Suzuki belongs to a defender. Newcastle win 26 aerial duels to Villa’s seven and hold the ball and the territory for most of the second half, yet they never make a clear chance. Their 16 shots carry 0.99 xG between them, Villa’s 15 carry 1.57, and Villa create three big chances to Newcastle’s none. It is hard to call that a robbery.

Jaissle’s own verdict, to Sky Sports, is that his side dominated and controlled the game without being in Villa’s box often enough. The flaw, he says, was that Newcastle were “not smart enough in our decision making in the final third”. Afterwards he adds that he cannot fault the attitude: “the goal is missing”.

Reading the effort

Effort is the easiest thing at a football match to see and the hardest to price. On Saturday the numbers back what the eye says: Newcastle cover 118.4km, their most in any league game this season, make 134 sprints to Villa’s 120, and win 26 aerial duels to seven. Jaissle says his half-time message was about belief, and the second half looks like a team that heard it: the xG climbs from 0.21 to 0.78. His changes are visible too, the double substitution on 56 and Burn sent forward at the end, though the two players introduced on 56 add only 0.11 xG between them, and Emery has five substitutions to draw on against Jaissle’s three.

The boos at half-time and full-time felt harsh. The effort was plain to see from every seat in the ground, and a young squad still finding its way needs the supporters behind it.

The season so far shows the same pattern. Newcastle’s running is level with their opponents’ (more distance in four of seven league games, more sprints in four), yet their expected goals have beaten the opposition’s only once, at Coventry, where they lost 4-1. Results have swung around the numbers: a 2-0 win at Tottenham on 0.72 xG to 1.12, a 4-1 defeat at Coventry on 1.84 to 1.47. Across the seven games, the 10 goals scored and 14 conceded each sit about two above the 8.2 xG created and 12.1 faced. The effort is there, and the shortfall sits in the final third, which is where Jaissle places it too.

What comes next

Seven league games in, Newcastle have two wins, two draws and three defeats, with 10 goals scored and 14 conceded, and for the first time this season they leave a league match without a goal. They sit 11th, level on eight points with Villa in 12th. The back line that shipped eight across the trips to Leeds and Coventry gave up one here, although that one extends a club-record run of 16 games without a clean sheet in all competitions, according to Sky Sports. The defensive step forward gives a young squad something to hold onto while it learns Jaissle’s methods. Finding the target is the next job.

Selhurst Park comes first, against Crystal Palace next Sunday, then Everton at St James’ Park on Monday 2 November and Fulham away five days after that. FotMob lists Jacob Ramsey (thigh) for a late-October return, Anthony Elanga (knock) as a mid-October absentee, and Tino Livramento (knock) for early November, so help may arrive in the window between those fixtures. The Tyne-Wear derby against Sunderland at St James’ Park follows on 5 December.

Villa arrived on the back of a 6-0 Champions League win over Fenerbahçe on Wednesday and a league record of 11 goals conceded in six games, their most at that stage since 1986-87. They leave with clean sheets on Wednesday and Saturday, and Viking next in the Champions League in midweek. Emery says the league remains Villa’s priority, and that keeping clean sheets is what they have been working on.

At Selhurst Park next Sunday, a forward testing the goalkeeper would be a start.