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Match Report

Perfect City, brittle Forest: scoring the Premier League’s nine new managers against last year’s
Andoni Iraola spent three seasons building the side he faced at the Vitality Stadium on Sunday, and in the 57th minute Alexander Isak turned in Cody Gakpo’s cross, which had clipped Florian Wirtz on its way through. Liverpool won 1-0. Iraola was Bournemouth’s manager until this summer, and on Sunday he beat them as Liverpool’s. Marco Rose, who replaced him, has three points from five league games.
It was one of nine stories like it. Nine Premier League clubs began 2026-27 under a new manager, the most in an English top-flight season since 1946-47, and change on that scale forces one question: who got it right? Every appointment is judged twice, against the man who left and against the eight who arrived alongside him.
The early answers are already loud. Enzo Maresca has won seven from seven at Manchester City, across the league, Europe and the Carabao Cup. Iraola is the first Liverpool manager unbeaten through his opening five league games since Joe Fagan in 1983. At the City Ground, Oliver Glasner’s side has yet to score at home in the league, and he said on Saturday that he had felt the weight of last season for the first time. Five of the nine have won fewer than half of their games in all competitions.
Loud is not the same as measured. So here is the yardstick, then the nine, then the same test run on last September’s managers.
How the tiers were scored
The rules were fixed before any manager was scored, and they use only results.
The window runs from each manager’s first competitive match to Sunday 20 September. It covers the Premier League, the Carabao Cup and the Champions League or Europa League where a club plays in them. The Community Shield and friendlies are excluded, and the FA Cup has not started. Every match counts the same, and the result is the one after 90 minutes; no tie has needed a shoot-out.
Four measures make a score out of 100:
- Results (40 points): points per game across all competitions. Three per game earns the full 40.
- Goal difference (25 points): goal difference per game, scaled so that +1.5 or better earns 25 and −1.5 or worse earns nothing.
- Resilience (15 points): the share of matches not lost.
- Form (20 points): points per game across the last three matches, scored like results.
Bands are S from 80, A from 70, B from 60, C from 50, D from 40, E from 30 and F below that.
Given the weights, nobody’s opinion touches the arithmetic. The weights themselves are a judgement, so we tested them, and three limits apply:
- Six or seven games is a small sample.
- A Carabao Cup tie against a League One side counts the same as a league match.
- Nothing adjusts for opposition or uses expected goals.
We also tested the weights. Give the four measures equal weight and seven of the nine managers stay in the same tier; Liverpool (78.8) moves up to S and Fulham (48.6) up to C, each just short of a tier line. Count league games only and the bottom of the table reshuffles: Ipswich (1.2 points a game) and Forest (1.0) would rank fifth and sixth, above Palace, Bournemouth and Fulham. They sit at the bottom of the all-competition table because Palace, Bournemouth and Fulham have won all their cup and European games so far, while Ipswich and Forest went out of the Carabao Cup.
S: Enzo Maresca, Manchester City (100.0)
Seven wins have arrived in every shape. At Old Trafford, City played from the 23rd minute with ten men after Phil Foden was sent off, and still won 1-0 through Erling Haaland’s goal just before the hour. In Porto, Haaland scored twice, City’s expected goals came to 2.31 against the hosts’ 0.22, and Porto failed to register a shot on target. Against Norwich in the Carabao Cup, Maresca made ten changes and still won 5-0, with 17-year-old Floyd Samba scoring twice on his debut. Sunderland’s three goals on Sunday are the only crack so far.
SWOT. Strengths: a squad that survives rotation, and a striker who scored both goals in Porto. Weaknesses: the back line was stretched for the first time against Sunderland. Opportunities: a top-eight finish in the Champions League league phase gives an easier route. Threats: the calendar asks the hard questions early, with Liverpool away on 11 October, Aston Villa away on 24 October and Arsenal away on 28 November.
A: Andoni Iraola, Liverpool (78.8)
Iraola is unbeaten in seven, though only some of it has been comfortable. The league record is two wins and three draws, alongside a 2-1 Champions League win over Atlético Madrid and a 3-1 Carabao Cup win over Tottenham. Opta notes he is the first Liverpool manager unbeaten in his first five league games since Joe Fagan in 1983. Alexander Isak already has four league goals, more than in all of last season. The 1-0 at Bournemouth was scrappy: Jamie Carragher criticised the first half, and Liverpool gave the ball away too often in midfield.
SWOT. Strengths: three consecutive league clean sheets, and Jeremy Jacquet looking like a serious prospect beside Virgil van Dijk. Weaknesses: the attack has struggled for influence, and three of five league games were draws. Opportunities: a young defence that is still improving. Threats: Liverpool are sixth on nine points, with City at Anfield on 11 October.
B: Matthias Jaissle, Newcastle (67.7)
Newcastle’s start has had two faces. A 2-2 draw with Liverpool, a 2-0 win at Tottenham and a 2-2 draw with Bournemouth sat alongside a 3-2 Carabao Cup win over West Brom and a 1-0 win at Millwall. Then Leeds won 4-1 at Elland Road on a Monday night, a defeat Jaissle put down to a lack of intensity in duels and second balls. Saturday’s 2-1 win over Hull came with eight senior players absent, including Tino Livramento, and an 18-year-old, Sean Steur, in midfield. Joe Willock and Lewis Hall scored inside the first seven minutes, Yoane Wissa’s penalty was saved, and a late switch to a back three let Hull back in.
SWOT. Strengths: 13 goals in seven matches, and the direct, incisive football that Football365 saw in the Hull goals. Weaknesses: physical duels and second balls, in Jaissle’s own diagnosis. Opportunities: Newcastle are not in Europe, so they have clear midweeks to work with. Threats: Coventry away on Monday 12 October, Aston Villa at home on 17 October and Palace away on 25 October.
B: Xabi Alonso, Chelsea (60.4)
Chelsea began as entertainers: the first four league games produced 19 goals. They won 3-2 at Fulham and 4-3 against Brighton, lost 2-1 at Arsenal and drew 2-2 with Hull, with a 6-3 Carabao Cup win over Leeds and a 2-0 win over Luton in between. Then Brentford won 3-0. Chelsea have now conceded at least two goals in five straight league games under Alonso, conceded from set-pieces again and looked short of competitive mentality once behind. They have taken one point from their last three league games.
SWOT. Strengths: 18 goals in seven matches, with Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers at the centre of it. Weaknesses: set-pieces, and shape once they concede. Opportunities: Moisés Caicedo’s return should add solidity in midfield. Threats: João Pedro’s knee injury, then Bournemouth at home on 10 October and Everton away on 17 October.
C: Marco Rose, Bournemouth (52.8)
Bournemouth’s league table and their season tell different stories. They have not won in five league games (three draws, two defeats), the ninth time in the club’s history they have failed to win any of their first five, and sit 17th. Yet they beat Lincoln 4-0 in the Carabao Cup and won 2-1 at Real Sociedad in their first European match, with Justin Kluivert scoring the club’s first European goal. Iraola’s return on Sunday ended in a 1-0 defeat, in a game between Iraola’s new side and Rose’s evolution of what Iraola built.
SWOT. Strengths: Bournemouth won plenty of second balls at Liverpool. Weaknesses: six goals in five league games, with two 2-2 draws among them. Opportunities: a Europa League campaign that has started with an away win. Threats: they are out of the bottom three only on tiebreakers, with Chelsea away on 10 October.
C: Pierre Sage, Crystal Palace (51.4)
Palace’s league form and Europe are a study in contrasts. They conceded 11 goals in their first four league games, four of them at home to City and three to Ipswich. Then they held Leeds 0-0 at Elland Road, and Tyrick Mitchell’s goal was ruled out for offside. In Europe Yéremy Pino, Chris Richards, Jørgen Strand Larsen from the penalty spot and Eddie Nketiah scored in a 4-0 Europa League win over Lech Poznań, and they won 3-0 against Middlesbrough in the Carabao Cup.
SWOT. Strengths: Adam Wharton driving the midfield, and depth up front with Mateta, Strand Larsen and Nketiah. Weaknesses: before the weekend, the worst defensive record in the league. Opportunities: the first clean sheet as a foundation, and Forest at home on 11 October. Threats: Palace are one point clear of the relegation zone.
D: Álvaro Arbeloa, Fulham (48.6)
Fulham have not won a league game, and only Tottenham are below them on goal difference. They lost 3-2 to Chelsea, 1-0 at Sunderland and 3-2 to Palace, then drew 0-0 at Liverpool and 1-1 with Manchester United. Against United the expected goals were 1.57 to 1.59. The cups have been kinder: a 3-0 win over AFC Wimbledon after ten changes was his first competitive win, followed by a 3-2 win at West Ham.
SWOT. Strengths: a young, revamped side that is scrapping hard, with back-to-back draws against Liverpool and United. Weaknesses: eight goals conceded in five league games. Opportunities: Ipswich on 10 October, then Hull and Coventry. Threats: only Tottenham are below them on goal difference.
E: Gary O’Neil, Ipswich (38.0)
Ipswich won their opener 2-1 against Sunderland, won 3-2 at Palace and beat Leicester 3-1 in the Carabao Cup. But they conceded five at Old Trafford, lost 4-2 to Arsenal in the Carabao Cup, where 16-year-old Max Dowman scored twice, and lost 1-0 at Everton, where they finished with ten men. Ipswich have gone 24 Premier League games without a clean sheet, their worst run in the top flight, and O’Neil has now lost 50 of his 93 Premier League games as a manager.
SWOT. Strengths: goals on the road, including three at Palace. Weaknesses: defending, without a clean sheet in 24 top-flight games. Opportunities: Fulham at home on 10 October, a match the pre-match model rates as close to even. Threats: Manchester City away on 17 October, then Forest at home on 23 October, a meeting of the two E-tier sides.
E: Oliver Glasner, Nottingham Forest (35.8)
Forest have played six and won one. Leeds beat them twice in four days, 1-0 in the league and 2-0 in the Carabao Cup. Draws with Liverpool (2-2) and Tottenham (0-0) followed, then a 2-1 win at Villa. On Saturday Coventry won 1-0 at the City Ground, their first Premier League win in 25 years, after VAR ruled out a late equaliser by Igor Jesus. Forest have not scored in any of three home league games. Glasner’s own diagnosis was psychological, not tactical.
SWOT. Strengths: points against Liverpool and Tottenham, and a win at Villa. Weaknesses: home scoring, and the loss of Elliot Anderson. Opportunities: Liam Delap, who arrived from Chelsea, and Palace away on 11 October. Threats: the club’s fifth manager in 12 months, with Arsenal at the City Ground on 18 October.
Then and now: are the clubs better off?
Put last September beside this one and the change looks less like renewal than a bill. Across the eight clubs that were also in the Premier League a year ago, the first five league games returned 68 points under the managers who left and 53 under the men who replaced them. Only two of the eight are ahead on points, and one of those is ahead by two.
To keep the comparison as close to like-for-like as the data allows, everything is held constant. Each club gets the same window, its first five league games, and the same four-part formula with the same weights. Cup and European matches are left out on both sides, so the tiers below will not match the all-competition tiers earlier in this piece: Palace and Bournemouth, whose Europa League and Carabao Cup wins no longer count, fall several places. “Then” means the man actually in the dugout for those five games last season: Guardiola at City, Slot at Liverpool, Howe at Newcastle, Maresca at Chelsea, Iraola at Bournemouth, Glasner at Palace and Silva at Fulham, and at Forest Nuno for three matches and Postecoglou for two. Ipswich were in the Championship, so their row carries a warning: it is a different division, and the score of one of their five matches is missing from our record. Their tier is C for any defeat of up to four goals.
Fixtures are the obvious objection, so we tested them. Ranking every opponent by where it finished in 2025-26, with newly promoted clubs counted as 19th, the average opponent this September was easier than last year’s for Liverpool (12.8 against 10.2) and for Newcastle (12.2 against 9.8). It was harder for Bournemouth (8.2 against 12.4), whose five games included Manchester City, Liverpool and Newcastle, and for Chelsea (9.6 against 11.2). For the other four clubs the swing is less than a single place.
Manchester City are the only clear improvement. Points are up from seven to fifteen and goal difference from +4 to +8, against opposition of almost identical difficulty. Guardiola’s side lost at home to Tottenham and at Brighton within nine days; Maresca’s has beaten every opponent, including a 1-0 win at Old Trafford played with ten men. His own record is the sharper comparison: eight points from Chelsea’s first five games last season, fifteen from City’s now.
Newcastle are level, with the fixtures helping. Six points became eight, but goal difference is zero in both years and the opposition was two and a half places easier this time. Howe’s five contained three goalless draws and a 3-2 home defeat to Liverpool; Jaissle’s contain a 4-1 defeat at Leeds and wins at Tottenham and against Hull. Newcastle scored and conceded three goals then and nine now. On equal weights the score barely moves, from 56.4 to 56.9: a club in the same place, with more goals at both ends.
Forest have moved sideways. Five points then and five now, with goal difference improved from −4 to −1 against a marginally harder run. Nuno’s side lost 3-0 at home to West Ham and Postecoglou’s lost 3-0 at Arsenal; Glasner’s has drawn at Liverpool, drawn with Tottenham and won at Villa. The trouble is at home, where the league goals have not come.
Five clubs are worse. Liverpool fell from fifteen points to nine despite the easier schedule, though an unbeaten start of two wins and three draws is a better place than the fall suggests. Chelsea’s points barely moved, eight to seven, but goal difference went from +5 to −2 against a harder run, and they have conceded at least twice in each of their five league games. Bournemouth’s drop is the biggest in points, ten to three, and the fixture list explains part of it. Palace (nine points to four) and Fulham (eight to two) faced almost the same difficulty as a year ago, and neither has that defence.
The men, not only the badges. Follow the managers instead of the clubs and the picture is mixed. Maresca went from eight points to fifteen, Iraola from ten to nine, Glasner from nine to five. That suggests squads and starting points matter at least as much as the man in charge, though three managers is a thin sample.
The verdict. One club is clearly better, two are level, one cannot be compared and five are worse, on the same five games and the same formula. The direction holds when the weights are equalised: all eight comparable clubs move the way they did before, and only Newcastle by less than a point. It mostly holds when fixtures are considered; the exceptions are Newcastle, whose small gain leans on an easier run, and Bournemouth, whose fall is partly the fixture list. Two cautions apply. Five games is a snapshot, not a forecast: Liverpool won their first five last season and led the table until 4 October, then finished fifth. And none of this says the appointments were mistakes. It says the change has not yet bought improvement at seven of the eight comparable clubs.
What it means for Newcastle. The results above cover the soft part of the fixture list. Newcastle’s first five league opponents averaged 12.2 on the same yardstick, and the next five, Coventry, Aston Villa, Palace, Everton and Fulham, average 12.4, so by 7 November they will have played ten games against opposition easier than the league average. Then come four league games in a fortnight against Arsenal, Brighton, Manchester United and Sunderland, all of whom finished in last season’s top eight. On the current dates, that run from 21 November to 5 December is where a start that reads as level becomes better or worse.
What the international break decides
The scorecard reopens quickly. Ipswich host Fulham and Chelsea host Bournemouth on 10 October. Palace host Forest and Liverpool host City on 11 October, then Newcastle visit Coventry on Monday 12 October. Forest’s trip to Selhurst Park has the sharpest edge: Oliver Glasner returns to the club he left, to face Pierre Sage, the man who replaced him.
How has your team performed so far with the new manager? Newcastle fans, are you satisfied with Jaissle’s return of points in the first stanza of the season just concluded? Join the conversation on X @mytoonarmy #NUFC
Results are to Sunday 20 September 2026. Match results come from Sportradar data and broadcaster match reports; context and statistics are drawn from Sky Sports, ESPN, Opta Analyst, UEFA.com, Football365, BBC Sport and AFP.
Sep 21, 2026
Couldn’t See Half of It, Loved All of It
I’ve lost me voice again, and it’s only September.
Here’s what nobody tells you about the seats: you see about half of it. The other half you hear, or you find out on your phone at half-time. So don’t ask me for a match report. The lads with the replays can do that. I’ll tell you what it was like.
After Leeds I was hard to live with. I’m walking up from the Metro, mild for September, onions frying outside the ground, and nobody’s saying much: Hull unbeaten, lads out injured all over the place, bairns from the academy on the bench. The bloke behind me is already moaning about the ref, and the ref hasn’t even walked out yet.
Then the teams come out, the whole ground’s singing, and I’ll be honest, I needed that more than I’d have told you.
Barely three minutes gone and there’s a roar, and I’m on me feet before I know why. Somebody shouts “Willock!” Right. Willock. Lovely. Then it goes again, and this time I actually see it, a lad winning the ball deep, a one-two, and he’s motoring up the pitch like he’s late for a bus, and it’s in the corner. Left-back. Hall! Two-nil, and I’m hugging a stranger and checking me watch, because we’ve been here before and every one of us knows it. Nobody say it. Nobody say it.
Then the penalty, and I’m going to be straight with you: I’ve no idea why we got it. I’m at the wrong end of the ground for that one. Murphy’s on the floor, the ref’s pointing, and I’m cheering like I know what’s going on. Then the ref stands there with his finger to his ear for what feels like a week and the whole stadium’s got a theory. Dive. Foul. Joke. Not a joke. I turned to me mate and he said, “He’s been clipped,” and I said, “Where?” and he said, “Somewhere.” That’s football, that is.
Wissa takes it and I can’t look, so I look at the bloke next to me, and his face tells me the lot. Saved. The groan that came out of this place! Nobody had a go at Wissa, mind, we just went “aw, man” all together like a big sad choir. I said to me mate, that’s coming back to haunt us.
Half-time, queue for the pies, and me mate’s showing me a clip on his phone. Somebody had hold of Murphy’s foot. His foot! From where I’m sat I’d have needed a telescope. “Take it,” I said. Behind me the bloke says it was never a pen, same as he’s said about every penalty since the Keegan days.
Second half, and something’s changed. They’re coming at us and ours are slower, I can see it from here, I can practically see them breathing. Steur goes off and the whole ground stands, and I stood too, and I never stand for anyone before the final whistle. Lovely lad, calm as you like. But I’ve seen bairns come and go in this shirt, man, and I’ll wait till he’s done it a few more times before I start ordering the statue.
Then they score, and I’m not going to pretend I saw it. Something goes wrong in the middle, someone loses it, their lad’s away, and the away end’s on its feet before I’ve worked out what’s happened. Found out after it was young Miley, a minute after they’d shoved him into midfield. Don’t you dare. He’d been class all day and it’s one slip.
Then our gaffer goes to three at the back and I say “no” out loud, to nobody. Nobody wants three at the back. But what’s he supposed to do, bring on Monty Magpie? The bench is full of bairns. I’ll let him off.
And then the last stretch, and I don’t remember breathing. Every ball comes back at us, the bloke next to me has his scarf wrapped round his face, and there’s a kid two rows down asking his dad what’s happening while his dad says “nowt, it’s fine,” and it is not fine. Somebody throws a foot in front of goal, somebody gets a leg to a shot, and I’m looking through me fingers like a kid at the pictures. The whole ground’s whistling for the ref to end it, every one of us. The board goes up for added time and it’s loads, felt like a week, and their keeper’s up for a corner, up for a corner, and I’m staring at me shoes.
Then the whistle. Not a roar, not at first. One great big breath out, and then the roar. I hugged the bloke behind me, the one who’s been telling us we’re doomed since the teams came out.
Man of the match? You’ll get folk saying Hall, and fair play, he scored. You’ll get the lads who’ve watched it back on telly telling you who ran where. I don’t need a replay. Barnes. Ninety minutes and he was still asking for the ball when everyone else’s legs had gone. That’s my man. Hall can have second.
After Leeds I just wanted them to look like they cared. They cared. Pardo’s legs went, Steur’s legs went, and that’s not a bad thing to see in your lads. Break now, then Coventry. Hull get Everton. I’ll worry about it next month. Tonight I’m finding a pint, me voice is shot, and I wouldn’t swap it.
Howay the lads.
Davies Robson is a fictional character, giving the fan’s-eye view from the terraces.
Sep 21, 2026
Everything They Had
Four days after Elland Road, a Newcastle side missing nine players ran until their legs gave way. They beat Hull 2-1, and they only just held on to do it.
Sean Steur’s legs went in the 66th minute, and Matias Fernandez-Pardo’s followed eight minutes later. Neither had been fouled or visibly hurt, and both appeared to cramp. Afterwards Matthias Jaissle spoke of tired bodies and a squad too thin to rotate.
Tyneside has an old line for afternoons like this one: We don’t demand a team that wins, we demand a club that tries. Four days earlier, at Elland Road, Newcastle had fallen short of it, with Leeds 3-0 up at half-time on their way to a 4-1 win. Malick Thiaw admitted afterwards that his side were “not what they want to be”.
Jaissle asked for more, and in his pre-match press conference he made clear he wanted a more aggressive and more physical performance. Against a Hull side unbeaten in the league and playing without fear, he got it. He called it an “incredible reaction” afterwards, and nobody who had watched the first half would have argued.
Willock wheeling away in delight
Hull arrived having conceded only twice in four league games, and Newcastle scored twice inside the first seven minutes. In the third minute John Egan blocked Joe Willock’s first attempt, Hull failed to clear, and Harvey Barnes picked Willock out again, this time for a left-footed finish past Konstantinos Tzolakis. Four minutes later Lewis Hall won the ball from Oli McBurnie deep in Newcastle’s half, swapped passes with Barnes and swept a low finish into the corner.
Swoosh!
That gave Barnes two assists inside seven minutes, which Opta says is the fastest any Newcastle player has managed in the Premier League, beating Fabian Schär’s nine minutes against Spurs in April 2023.
Our latest mercurial LW, take a bow, Harvey Barnes!
Three down at half-time on Monday. Two up after seven minutes on Saturday.
Newcastle did not sit on the lead. They kept pressing high, and Hull managed only three shots before the break, worth 0.28 expected goals between them. Then came the moment that would matter later. Sorba Thomas grabbed Jacob Murphy’s foot in the box, VAR backed the penalty, and Tzolakis, booked before the kick, dived left to save Yoane Wissa’s effort.
Newcastle went in at 2-0 when it could have been three. Jaissle said afterwards that the miss shifted the momentum and handed Hull some hope. A third goal, he added, would have made the second half far easier to manage.
Barnes, Hall and Steur
Elland Road had belonged to everyone’s regrets, and on Saturday the early stages belonged to Barnes, who had played every minute of Monday’s defeat and answered it inside seven minutes. He supplied both goals and ran the left flank for ninety minutes. In the second half he twice went close himself. First he dragged a shot wide after making room in his usual fashion, and later he was denied at full stretch by the legs of Tzolakis when he broke clear with the game still in the balance.
Hall is delighted, Barnes looks shy
FotMob’s ratings gave Barnes the top mark and Sofascore named Willock its man of the match, and both have a case. This blog’s Man of the Match is someone else.
It is Lewis Hall.
Start with the goal, his first at St James’ Park, which began with him winning the ball back and ended with a low finish into the corner. But the goal was the smaller part of his afternoon. He played all ninety minutes at left-back, and Sofascore credits him with seven clearances, a number that mattered on a day when Newcastle spent the final quarter defending their own box. In the first half he had also stretched for a back-post chance that would have made it three.
Hall was imperious. England recall deserved.
England had recalled him to their squad the day before, and he answered with the kind of performance that justified it. It capped an excellent start to the season, with a clean sheet at Tottenham, an assist against Bournemouth and a head coach who admitted earlier this month that he was “in love” with what he was seeing.
Impossible Steur is only 18 years old
Then there is Steur, who played the best game of his Newcastle career. He sat at the base of midfield, took the ball under pressure without ever seeming hurried, and looked nothing like a player making only his third start for the club. He is 18, and Jaissle said afterwards that such maturity is not normal at that age. He won two tackles, created two chances and left the pitch at 66 minutes to a standing ovation, a day after the Netherlands Under-21s had called him up for the first time.
At Elland Road, Ao Tanaka’s shot had deflected off Steur and then off Lewis Miley on its way in, an own goal nobody could fairly pin on either. That kind of moment tends to follow a young player home, and this blog’s Friday preview was called The Weight of One Deflection. On Saturday, Steur put that weight down.
Spare a thought for Jaissle
Jaissle’s week began with a 4-1 defeat and ended with nine players unavailable, the latest of them Tino Livramento, who was left out of the squad with discomfort picked up in training the day before. Miley therefore started at right-back. The bench held Nick Pope, Fabian Schär, Bazoumana Touré, Aladji Bamba and five academy players, four of them teenagers.
Fist pump, Jaissle is happy
And yet the plan held. Jaissle called the first half probably the best of the season so far, and it rested on a simple idea carried out with real discipline.
Hull lined up in a 5-4-1 and tried to build through their two central midfielders, but Newcastle waited patiently and then flew at them the moment the ball went in. Sergej Jakirović described the same trap afterwards. Newcastle were waiting for Hull to play into midfield, he said, pressed as soon as they did and were very clinical on the counter-attack, while Hull had not defended the space between defence and midfield well enough. Their lone striker, McBurnie, waited for service that rarely came.
The intensity did not cost Newcastle their discipline. They committed four fouls to Hull’s ten and collected one yellow card to Hull’s four, which says a good deal about a side that pressed hard while staying on its feet.
Width did the rest. With Murphy on the right and Barnes on the left, Hull’s back five had to defend the whole width of the pitch. Murphy twice fizzed low crosses through the six-yard box that Wissa and Barnes only just missed, and he also won the penalty. Early in the second half he nutmegged Ryan Giles, who was booked for holding him back.
The reshape came last, and it was forced. When Steur tired, Jaissle sent on Schär, moved Miley into midfield and switched to a back three, a formation he has made clear he would rather avoid. When Fernandez-Pardo followed, Touré came on, and Jaissle used only three of his five permitted substitutions because most of the rest of his bench were academy players.
Hull finished with 21 shots, four of them on target, and one of those went in. That is a manager solving a problem with the pieces he had.
The last twenty minutes
The 67th minute changed the mood far more than the scoreline. Miley, barely a minute into his new role in midfield, was caught in possession. Belloumi, the winger this blog picked out on Friday, played a reverse pass, and Mohamed-Ali Cho, four minutes into his afternoon, found the net off the far post.
History said Newcastle were safe, because they had never lost a league match at St James’ Park after leading by two goals at half-time, a record of 69 wins and four draws. Nobody in the stadium was thinking about it.
What they were thinking about was last season. Newcastle dropped more points from winning positions than any other side, 27 in all, and Jaissle was open afterwards about the anxiety that follows them. Asked about the nerves on the pitch and in the stands, he said he had felt them too and put them down to a trauma from the past that has stuck. The players, he said, had told him such games used to end differently. He hoped supporters would feel a change in the coming weeks, with a ground that stays energised and supportive when something goes wrong.
Hull sent on fresh legs, with Robinio Vaz and Lucas Gourna-Douath arriving at 78 minutes and Joe Gelhardt at 83. Newcastle had little left on the bench to change the game. Eighteen of Hull’s 21 shots came after the break. Lukas Horníček parried a Belloumi effort and later used his feet to keep out Vaz, and the longer it went on, the more the anxiety Jaissle described spread through the ground.
With about ten minutes left the ball fell to McBurnie on the edge of the six-yard box, and the goal was there for the taking. Then Wissa, the man who had missed the penalty and was now the last man back, got a foot in. Tim Iroegbunam’s follow-up volley flew inches over the bar. At the other end Barnes broke clear behind the Hull defence, and Tzolakis stuck out a leg to deny him what would have been the goal to end it.
Six minutes were added, and nobody at St James’ Park took a full breath in any of them. Hull won a late corner, Tzolakis came forward for it, the ball came in, and Newcastle defended it. The whistle went in the seventh minute of stoppage time.
Newcastle 2, Hull 1. It was their first home league win of the season and their first at St James’ Park over Hull in the Premier League. It lifted them to eight points from five games, level with Hull, and they had cleared their lines 54 times to Hull’s 12 to get there. Jaissle said afterwards that he was relieved, and it was hard to imagine anyone in the ground feeling differently.
What comes next
The international break lasts three weeks, and Newcastle will need every day of it. Nine players are out, and Jaissle said he hopes some will be back when the league resumes. Hall is away with England, Steur with the Netherlands Under-21s and, reportedly, Fernandez-Pardo with Belgium, while Livramento’s own England place now looks in doubt after Saturday’s injury.
Then comes Coventry away on Monday 12 October, Newcastle’s first league meeting with the Sky Blues since September 2000. Frank Lampard’s side won at Nottingham Forest on Saturday after four straight defeats, so they will arrive with something to believe in.
Hull have a reset of their own. Sergej Jakirović has given his players the whole of next week off, with a home friendly against Sheffield United on 1 October. Everton then visit the MKM Stadium on Sunday 11 October, in a game moved to a 2pm television slot. Their unbeaten start is over, but their belief, judging by their manager’s words afterwards, is not.
Both clubs sit on eight points, with Hull ahead on goal difference, and they meet again at the MKM Stadium on 30 May, the date the season is due to end.
What Newcastle need at Coventry is what Saturday gave them: not perfection, and certainly not a stroll, but a team that keeps running until its legs give out. We don’t demand a team that wins, we demand a club that tries. On Saturday, Newcastle gave Tyneside both.

Are you happy with the effort the team put out again the in-form Hull? Did you wet your pants those last few minutes as the aerial bombardment from Hull came in? Join the conversation on X @mytoonarmy #NUFC
Sep 20, 2026
Marching Over Us
I need a pint. Several pints. Give us a minute before I even start this.
Elland Road’s a proper ground, I’ll give them that much and not a word more. Old brick, tight corners, none of your soulless new-build nonsense — the kind of place that’s been putting the fear into away fans since before any of us were born. We’re rammed into the corner of the West Stand and even before kick-off you can hear that home end going, Marching On Together, over and over, louder every time, and it gets in your chest whether you like it or not. Dry night, mild, no rain — so no, don’t even try telling me the weather did us in. We did us in.
Six minutes. Six minutes is all it takes to turn a decent night out into a bloody disaster. A deflection, then another deflection, in off one of our own lads twice basically, and I’m stood there like an absolute mug thinking, fine, unlucky, these things happen, we’ll be alright. Then a header goes in that shouldn’t have counted for toffee and it’s two, and I’m not thinking “unlucky” any more, I’m swearing my head off at nobody in particular because there’s nobody else to swear at. Third one goes in right on the whistle and honestly, half of me wanted to walk straight out there and then. Three-nil at half-time away at bloody Leeds. Elland Road bouncing, absolutely loving it, and us just stood there taking it on the chin like a pack of mugs who paid good money and took a day off work to watch this.
I was livid. Proper livid. Not the “oh well” kind, the kind where you’re shouting at strangers and not even caring how it sounds. Some individual mistakes in there I won’t repeat what I called them at the time, not in print anyway.
Second half we finally turned up, and for twenty minutes I let myself hope, God help me. Big roar when the subs came on, proper eruption when one of them cracked the bar, whole end up on its feet before the ball’s even landed. Then they go and score a fourth right in the middle of it and it’s like getting your pint knocked out your hand — you weren’t even doing anything wrong, it just happens to you. Some absolute muppets started leaving after that. Didn’t blame them. Wanted to join them, if I’m honest.
Scored a consolation at the death and I was up cheering like a lunatic over absolutely nothing, because that’s what you’re reduced to by that point — four-one’s four-one, doesn’t matter how you dress it up, but I’ll take one daft cheer over ninety minutes of silence any day of the week.
Walked out of there properly seething. Not at the lads giving everything, at the manner of it — getting bullied, pushed about, made to look like a Sunday league side by a team who simply wanted it more for an hour. That should not happen. Not to us, not at any level, not ever, and I don’t care how new the manager is. Long drive home, nobody said a word till Wetherby, work at half eight the next morning after that. Brilliant.
Right. Head’s talking now, because somebody’s got to. It’s early days. New manager, barely five minutes into the job, and this is the kind of night that happens to a team still figuring itself out — I know that, I do. He’s earned a bit of rope, and I’ll give it to him.
But I’ll tell you what — I’m sick to the back teeth of “early days,” and I’m sick of being patient, and if I have to watch us get run over like that again I’m not going to be nearly this reasonable about it. Give him his time. He’ll get it. I’ll just be effing and blinding at the telly the whole way through, same as I was tonight. Hull at home Saturday. Better be better than this. Has to be.
Davies Robson is a fictional character, giving the fan’s-eye view from the terraces.
Sep 15, 2026
The Numbers Catch Up
On Friday, I warned that Newcastle were surviving on moments they hadn’t earned. On Monday night, Elland Road presented the invoice.
Two minutes and forty-two seconds. That’s all the time that passed between Lewis Miley turning Ao Tanaka’s speculative strike into an own goal and Jayden Bogle wheeling away to celebrate a second, and by the time both had gone in, something had already changed in the away end. Not panic, not yet. Something closer to recognition — the sinking, specific feeling of watching a pattern you’d been warned about arrive right on schedule.
Because this was not bad luck. This was the bill coming due.
The Bill Comes Due
On Friday, previewing this fixture, I made a simple observation: Matthias Jaissle’s Newcastle were not out-playing anyone. They were out-scoring the chances they created — through Anthony Elanga’s pace, through moments of individual brilliance, through a goalkeeper standing on his head when required — while the underlying picture told a different story almost every week. Second-best by expected goals at Liverpool. Second-best at Bournemouth, even with the majority of the ball. Somehow still winning at Tottenham despite the numbers favouring Roberto De Zerbi’s side. Five games unbeaten, built on moments rather than method.
Jaissle, tough night
DCL, he scored against us – again
Leeds simply did what nobody else this season had managed: they turned the volume of chances Newcastle concede into an actual scoreline. By full time, Daniel Farke’s side had generated more than double the expected goals of their visitors and scored four times from it — clinical where Newcastle had spent a month being fortunate. It is, when the whole season is weighed rather than one midweek result, exactly the correction that was overdue. Newcastle came into Monday night averaging more shots against than any side in the division. Nobody had made them pay for it. Leeds did, inside thirty-four minutes, and the manner of it — a shot that took two Newcastle touches to find the net, a header that cannoned in off a defender’s shoulder rather than beating Hornícek cleanly — carried the specific cruelty of a team whose luck has simply run out rather than one that’s been torn apart tactically.
A Number Nine Who Never Arrived
If Newcastle needed a spark to drag them back into a game slipping away, they didn’t have one up front. Matias Fernández-Pardo started up front, and spent the night rotating the central striker’s role with Yoane Wissa — more often the furthest man forward than in behind him — without it changing much. Fifty-seven minutes without a shot, a chance created, or a telling touch anywhere near the Leeds box: still visibly building up his match sharpness after a stop-start start to life in England, and unable to latch onto anything played in his direction. This column’s predicted XI on Friday had Joe Willock starting in the front three instead, flagged as the sharper option even then. Jaissle went the other way, and the eye test backed up the original call. Fernández-Pardo was withdrawn on 57 minutes for his ineffectiveness, and Newcastle looked a sharper, better-connected side once Willock was on the pitch — a shot that clipped the crossbar, another straight at Trafford, both arriving after the game was already beyond saving but both proof of the ball-carrying control that had gone missing from kick-off.
Off with a concussion injury
Two Different Games
There were, in truth, two matches here. The first half was as one-sided as the scoreline eventually suggested — Leeds pouring forward with pace and purpose, Newcastle unable to get out of their own half without giving the ball straight back. The second told a different story, and it’s worth telling properly rather than dismissed as garbage time. Once the contest was safely out of reach, Farke’s players naturally eased off the accelerator — fresh legs from the bench, a settling into defensive shape rather than a relentless chase for a fifth. And into that space, Newcastle finally started playing like themselves. The long punts forward that Leeds’ back three had been reading and cutting out all evening gave way to something more patient — the ball kept on the ground, moved through midfield rather than launched over it, Newcastle actually holding spells of possession for the first time all night. It bought them a goal. Harvey Barnes worked the ball wide to the overlapping Tino Livramento, and Livramento’s deflected cross fell for Bazoumana Touré to finish confidently in the game’s closing minute — a goal built from patience rather than desperation, even if it arrived three goals too late to mean anything for the result.
Steur’s Night
In the middle of all this was an eighteen-year-old handed a Premier League audition with no warning at all, just not on the terms he’d have chosen. Sean Steur was still warming up on the touchline when Nico González went down clutching his face early in the first half, and by the nineteenth minute he was being sent on cold, ahead of more experienced options still sat on the bench, into a Premier League away fixture that had already started to turn hostile. Fifteen minutes later, a slow, unhurried pass out from the back went straight to a Leeds shirt, and the move that followed ended with Bogle’s name on the second goal. It was a genuine mistake, and a costly one.
But it’s worth saying plainly what Steur did next, because it’s the part of the night easiest to overlook: he didn’t hide. No further mistakes, no further lapses — just seventy-one minutes of a teenager doing his job brought on earlier than planned, competing for the ball and getting through the rest of the match without incident. That’s not nothing. Thrown into the deep end with no notice, on the night his new club’s unbeaten start fell apart around him, he still had the character to see it through rather than shrink from it. Newcastle will need players who respond exactly like that a great deal more before this season is finished.
What Has to Change
The fix isn’t complicated to name, even if it’s harder to execute. Newcastle’s press is built to win the ball high and hurt teams in transition, and when it works — as it mostly has through four games — it papers over a defence that’s more porous underneath than the results have suggested. Leeds simply had the physicality to play through it: hold the ball under pressure, draw Newcastle’s midfield out of shape, and exploit the space Jaissle’s vertical system leaves in behind once the first line of pressing is beaten. Against a team built for exactly that fight, it finally cost them. The system doesn’t need tearing up — it kept Newcastle unbeaten in five games across all competitions coming into Monday — but it needs either a more disciplined holding presence shielding the back four, or the willingness to sit a little deeper against sides set up to punish an open pitch.
Bamba, played well in the short time he had
The selection call in the number ten role is the more immediately fixable problem. Fernández-Pardo is a talented forward still finding his feet in England; Leeds marked him tightly rather than sitting off, and the ball into him was mostly high and hopeful — easy pickings for taller, more physical defenders — rather than anything played to feet. Newcastle rushed it in the first half rather than waiting for the right pass, and the faster they went, the worse it got. Starting him ahead of a player who’d arguably earned the shirt already looks like the wrong call in hindsight. Willock carries the ball into midfield himself rather than waiting for it to arrive over the top, which sidesteps the service problem entirely.
The harder problem is depth through the middle. González’s head knock left Jaissle sending on an eighteen-year-old, and while Steur held up better than the circumstances deserved, a squad with genuine ambitions needs recognised cover in that position that isn’t an emergency introduction. Jacob Ramsey picked up a knock in the warm-up and was never a viable option either, Jaissle confirmed afterwards — Aladji Bamba was also on the bench, fit and available — the likelier explanation is that Steur’s match fitness at this stage of the season simply outstripped his.
Jaissle called it “difficult to digest” afterwards, and he was right to. But it’s also, for what it’s worth, not the first setback of his coaching career. Newcastle’s own reset starts this Saturday, at home to Hull City — a considerably more forgiving proposition than Elland Road on a Monday night, and exactly the kind of fixture where the fundamentals Jaissle admitted were missing can be rebuilt in front of a St James’ Park crowd still willing to be won over. Coventry away in October follows, but that’s a conversation for another week. Jaissle has been here before, if not on this exact patch of English grass, and he’s answered it well before. There’s no reason, on the evidence of his career rather than one bad night, to expect anything different this time.
Newcastle’s worst performance of the season so far? Is this the wake up call we deserve? Join the conversation on X @mytoonarmy #NUFC
Sep 15, 2026