Preview

Four days after Elland Road, a patched and youthful Newcastle side look for redemption against a Hull team playing with nothing to fear

The touch that put Newcastle behind on Monday night wasn’t even Lewis Miley’s shot. It came off Ao Tanaka’s boot, deflected twice — off Sean Steur, then off Miley — and spun past Lukás Hornícek into the top corner. An own goal by ricochet, the kind no defender can really be blamed for. But football doesn’t deal in exculpatory footnotes. The scoreboard read Miley, 32nd minute, and by full time it read 4-1. Miley had signed a six-year contract back in May, tying his future to the club he joined at seven years old. Now he stood in the wreckage of his own deflection.

Reports from Elland Road described Jaissle losing his temper in the away dressing room before he composed himself for the cameras. Nobody at the club has confirmed that on record. But it fits the gap between what he said in the tunnel and what followed an hour later. In front of the BBC’s microphones, he sounded measured, almost clinical — talking about physicality, fundamentals, the lessons his young side had just been taught the hard way. Later, to Chronicle Live, something rawer surfaced: “It is tough, it is hurtful, and it should be hurtful also for the players and staff.” Two registers, same manager, forty minutes apart.

His pre-match press conference confirmed the scale of the problem without changing the tone. Eight players are absent in total. Dan Burn, Ewen Jaouen, Joelinton and William Osula are out long-term. Nico González is in concussion protocols, Jacob Ramsey injured. Jaissle confirmed Amar Dedić would also miss out. Anthony Elanga’s scan was still pending as he spoke to reporters — the manager wouldn’t call it either way, though he admitted it “doesn’t look that good.” No reinforcements are arriving before Saturday. Asked whether he’d rethink a midfield built on teenagers rather than experience, he didn’t blink: “It will be a young midfield. We trust them. This is our approach… it’s a brave journey the club is going on. I’m fully committed in that, so now if there’s one setback we shouldn’t delete our journey or our vision… We anticipated that something like that against Leeds happened, or is happening also in the next weeks and months. It’s just on us to respond, but still believing, we don’t change that.” Not a manager retreating into caution. One restating the terms of his own project, almost defiantly, as though retreat were never on the table.

Hull aren’t obliging opposition for a rebuilding exercise, though. Sergej Jakirović’s side arrive at St James’ Park fourth in the table. Unbeaten. Eight points from four games. They’ve conceded twice all season — a record newly promoted sides aren’t supposed to carry into late September. They beat Manchester United on the opening weekend. Won away at Coventry. Held Aston Villa scoreless at the MKM. Then went to Stamford Bridge and took a point off Chelsea’s front three. Newcastle, by contrast, sit twelfth with a negative goal difference and a first defeat four days old. Whatever framing this fixture gets, “newly promoted side there for the taking” isn’t the honest version of it. Hull are the form team in the building.

There’s history complicating the redemption story too. St James’ Park has never been kind to Newcastle against this particular opponent — two defeats and a draw there since 2008, no home win in almost two decades of trying. The overall head-to-head is level: two wins apiece, three draws. But Newcastle’s wins in that sequence have all come somewhere other than home. Beating Hull at St James’ Park isn’t a formality Newcastle are overdue. It’s something they simply haven’t managed in a very long time.

Which brings the story back to personnel — and to two names carrying more weight than a routine team-sheet suggests.

Tino Livramento is expected to start at right-back, with Dedić out. What he brings back is something Newcastle have barely had access to all season. The 23-year-old missed England’s World Cup after a calf injury in training. Add two separate knee problems and a hamstring issue last season, and he made just seventeen Premier League appearances in total — a run of misfortune long enough that his best qualities have become almost theoretical to Newcastle supporters rather than remembered: the explosive recovery pace, the willingness to carry the ball vertically rather than simply hold width. He came off the bench at Elland Road and picked up a booking for a combative challenge on Aaronson, which tells its own small story about intent. Leeds exploited exactly the channel he occupies — Bogle in behind, a long throw Newcastle’s back line couldn’t clear. His return offers something more specific than depth: recovery speed, and an attacking outlet down a side that’s been defended statically, out of necessity rather than design, for most of the campaign.

Miley’s case is different, and more personal. This is a player who became Newcastle’s youngest-ever Premier League and Champions League appearance maker — a boyhood academy graduate who’d already lived through one hard year before this one. A freak leg break in training ended his last season early. Weeks later, still recovering, he signed a six-year contract anyway, tying his future to the club regardless. Now, at twenty, he’s the senior name in a midfield Jaissle has chosen to trust rather than reinforce. An own goal by deflection isn’t a performance indictment on its own. But it lands differently on a player whose form across the opening weeks has invited scrutiny rather than deflected it. If Jaissle’s “brave journey” means anything concrete on Saturday, it plays out through players exactly like Miley — not just Newcastle’s collective response to Leeds, but his own, in a stadium that has watched him grow up in front of it.

Hull’s own threat has a name too, and it isn’t the one most previews will reach for. Mohamed Belloumi is a left-footed Algerian winger, signed from Farense for around €5.5 million after Hull’s promotion push. He missed most of the 2024-25 season with an ACL injury. What he’s shown since returning looks less like coincidence and more like a player finally healthy enough to prove why Hull signed him. He scored both of Hull’s goals in the 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge, cutting in from the right onto his stronger left foot — the way genuinely dangerous inverted wingers do. Two goals and an assist in four league games this season, for a player who spent most of last year on the sidelines. Whichever of Botman, Thiaw or a makeshift back four picks him up on Saturday inherits the problem of a player playing the best football of his career, behind an XI with nothing to fear from the occasion.

Livramento, Miley, Belloumi — three threads, and one stadium that has to hold all of them at once. Whatever else Saturday is about, it’s also fifty-two thousand people watching a returning full-back for signs of his old pace, watching a boyhood favourite for signs he’s shaken off Monday, and watching a Hull winger who’s already shown he doesn’t need an invitation.

St James’ Park still carries its reputation. Football Ground Map named it the best atmosphere in the Premier League as recently as 2018, and the Gallowgate and Leazes ends still do the acoustic work that visiting sides find genuinely uncomfortable. But reputations get tested on afternoons like this one. It’s the first home game since Elland Road. The last match before the international break scatters the squad for a fortnight. There’s a real question over how the ground responds to watching an injury-patched, teenager-heavy XI try to compete again so soon after being physically dismantled. Jaissle has staked his public language on the idea that the crowd stays with the project regardless of result. Whether that holds inside the first twenty minutes — with Hull’s front three moving the ball like a team that knows exactly how good it currently is — is a different question from whether it holds in a press conference.

Newcastle to win this, on balance. 2-1 feels right — Wissa or Barnes finding a way through a Hull defence that’s conceded only twice but hasn’t faced a front line with anything like Newcastle’s underlying quality. But the draw is a live outcome here, not a hedge. Hull haven’t lost. Newcastle haven’t won at St James’ Park against them since the last decade. Nothing in either team’s recent form makes a routine home win the safe assumption it would ordinarily be. Whatever happens, it’s the last word for a fortnight before the internationals scatter this squad across three continents — which makes Saturday’s answer, for better or worse, the one Newcastle will be left sitting with the longest.

Did Jaissle give the team the “hair dryer” treatment after the last game’s disappointment? Will the team be able to bounce back strong in front of a sell out crowd? Join the conversation on X @mytoonarmy #NUFC

Monday night, under the lights at Elland Road, two head coaches who have never met will discover exactly how little separates their unbeaten records from something far shakier — and for one of them, the margin for error is a good deal thinner than the table suggests.

Matthias Jaissle brings Newcastle south on the back of five games without defeat, a start good enough to quiet most of the noise around a summer that stripped his midfield of its heartbeat, but nowhere near long enough to have settled anything. He replaced a manager who delivered Newcastle their first major trophy in 70 years and took them into the Champions League — Eddie Howe left an inheritance, not just a vacancy — and five points from a possible nine in the league, none of it won with any real control of a match, is the kind of start that buys patience rather than earns conviction. Daniel Farke’s Leeds, meanwhile, remain unbeaten in three Premier League outings, a record that reads better than almost anything they’ve actually produced on the pitch. Both managers have banked points nobody would call fully deserved. Only one of them is doing it under a fanbase still working out whether he’s the right man for the job.

Two Identities, One Shared Debt

Jaissle’s Newcastle is built to be recognisable at a distance — high, aggressive, vertical the moment possession turns over. It’s the football he learned at Red Bull Salzburg, transplanted onto Tyneside with barely any run-in: six days from Eddie Howe’s exit to Jaissle’s appointment, and a pre-season to reshape a squad that had just lost Bruno Guimarães, Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon. The early evidence backs the reputation up in patches and undercuts it in others. Newcastle have finished second-best by expected goals in every Premier League match so far, regardless of who actually held the ball — well behind Liverpool’s control at St James’ Park (39 per cent possession, outshot 13-27), matching Tottenham’s calmer spells away from home despite winning, and even with 58 per cent of the ball themselves against Bournemouth. They won at Tottenham with the numbers actually favouring Roberto De Zerbi’s side, 1.12 expected goals to Newcastle’s 0.72, and they salvaged draws against Liverpool and Bournemouth from losing underlying positions in both.

The pattern is unmistakable: Newcastle are not out-playing anyone. They are out-scoring the chances they create, through Anthony Elanga’s pace, Yoane Wissa’s knack for the audacious finish, Joe Willock arriving late into the box like he’s been shot from somewhere behind the play. And when they have conceded, it hasn’t mattered who was controlling the game — a stoppage-time penalty against Liverpool, an early strike and an own goal inside 35 minutes against Bournemouth, two goals shipped even in their most convincing ninety minutes of the season, the 3-2 EFL Cup win over West Brom. Clean sheets at Tottenham and away at Millwall show the lapses aren’t constant, but Jaissle’s Newcastle live and die by moments. So far, more have gone their way than not.

None of that has cost Jaissle anything yet, because Newcastle haven’t lost. It will start to cost him the moment they do. Five games unbeaten is a number, not a verdict, and a below-par performance away at a side plenty inside St James’ Park would expect Newcastle to beat with something to spare is exactly the kind of result that turns “work in progress” into a question mark.

Farke’s Leeds tell an oddly similar story wearing a different shirt. The reputation, forged in a 100-point Championship title win built on control and a stingy defence, suggests a team that dictates. The season so far suggests otherwise. Leeds have lost the expected-goals battle in every single Premier League fixture: shaded 0.65 to 0.49 by a Nottingham Forest side that hit the post and carried the greater threat throughout an opening-day win settled only by Anton Stach’s free-kick; outshot 22 to 12 by Brentford before Dominic Calvert-Lewin rescued a point with 11 minutes left; out-possessed two-to-one by Brighton, who registered 20 shots to Leeds’ 10 despite Jayden Bogle’s early goal giving Farke’s side an hour to hold onto a lead they hadn’t remotely earned. Even in the one match Leeds’ underlying numbers actually favoured them — last Wednesday’s Carabao Cup exit at Chelsea, where their expected-goals total of 2.70 topped the home side’s 2.36 — they still contrived to concede four times in twelve second-half minutes and lose 6-3.

Farke has his own word for it. Reflecting on Stamford Bridge, he called it “a bit unlike us to concede so many goals,” pointing to squad rotation as the culprit. The Brentford and Brighton evidence suggests a deeper habit: Leeds this season have spent long stretches without the ball, surviving on resilience, individual quality in the final third, and Farke’s evident skill at organising a deep block, rather than the control that made his name.

The Lights, the Noise, and the Kids

Farke has never met Jaissle, and said as much this week — but not before invoking the man Jaissle replaced. Howe, he said, “has left a legacy over there” that’s never easy for a successor to follow. It’s a pointed thing for an opposing manager to volunteer about someone he’s never worked opposite, and it lands squarely on the question Newcastle’s own support is still weighing up: whether five unbeaten games are early proof Jaissle is that successor, or just a soft run of fixtures dressed up as one. Farke still expects Newcastle dangerous on the break, with genuine pace up top, whatever the verdict on their new manager. Anthony Elanga is among the quickest wide players in the division, and £51million summer signing Matias Fernandez-Pardo — still working his way to full match fitness after two substitute cameos — may be faster still. There’s a tension in that for Farke, though. Sitting off, as Leeds did away at Brighton and Brentford, actually compresses the space in behind rather than opening it — a deep block denies exactly the running lanes Elanga and Fernandez-Pardo want to attack. The bigger danger is the alternative: roared forward by a crowd Farke has spent weeks trying to energise, if Elland Road pushes his back three higher up the pitch than they’ve dared go away from home, that’s when the gaps appear and Newcastle’s pace becomes genuinely dangerous.

The atmosphere is the other variable neither manager can fully account for. Farke has spent much of this season talking about turning Elland Road into a fortress, and this is only the second home Premier League match of his side’s campaign, after a 1-1 draw with Brentford. Jaissle, for his part, has already clocked the size of the occasion: Newcastle “need to match” the atmosphere, he said this week, aware that a raucous Monday night under the Elland Road floodlights is a different proposition to anything his side has faced away from home this season — Tottenham included.

Youth may end up mattering more than either manager would like to admit. Newcastle’s rebuild has pushed some unusually inexperienced names into first-team responsibility earlier than planned: Lukáš Horníček, a summer arrival from Braga, has started ahead of the more experienced Nick Pope in goal; Lewis Miley, an academy product who has started every Premier League match so far in central midfield, has been earmarked by Jaissle as his emergency cover at right-back should Amar Dedić’s hamstring knock rule him out; Lewis Hall has become close to undroppable at left-back, praised by Jaissle this week as a player he’s “in love with.” None of that is a weakness by default, but a Monday-night away trip to a hostile, promotion-adjacent crowd is exactly the kind of fixture that tests inexperience in ways a home draw with Bournemouth doesn’t.

Predicted Line-ups

Leeds United (3-4-2-1): Trafford; Justin, Elvedi, Muharemović; Bogle, Ampadu, Tanaka, Gudmundsson; Stach, Okafor; Calvert-Lewin

Joe Rodon remains sidelined, with Farke confirming no fresh fitness concerns beyond that, so expect continuity from the back three that started at Brighton. Harry Wilson and Brenden Aaronson offer alternatives in the two attacking-midfield berths, but Okafor’s directness alongside Stach’s range has been the preferred pairing behind Calvert-Lewin, whose willingness to occupy centre-backs has been a quiet feature of Leeds’ start.

Newcastle United (4-2-3-1): Horníček; Dedić, Thiaw, Botman, Hall; González, Miley; Elanga, Willock, Barnes; Wissa

Dedić’s hamstring is described as not serious, but it remains a genuine call for matchday; if he doesn’t make it, Miley shifts to right-back and Sean Steur or Jacob Ramsey comes into central midfield. Fernandez-Pardo, with almost a full training week behind him for the first time since his arrival, is the standout option from the bench rather than a starter, with Jaissle suggesting a decision may not come until matchday itself.

Prediction

Two sides that have spent September being bailed out by moments rather than method feels like a fixture settled by exactly that: a moment. Leeds’ home advantage and set-piece threat — Stach’s dead-ball quality, Muharemović’s aerial presence — argue for a goal at the right end early. Newcastle’s directness, and the chance that a fortress-minded Elland Road pushes Leeds higher up the pitch than they’ve managed away from home, argues for the sting on the counter that’s rescued Jaissle three times already this season.

Call it 2-1 to Newcastle. Anthony Elanga to score again on the break, Yoane Wissa to add a second from a move that starts deep and ends fast, and Dominic Calvert-Lewin — who has found the net in each of his last two starts — to give Leeds something to hold onto without quite completing the comeback.

Whoever wins it, neither side leaves Elland Road with their underlying numbers fixed — but only one of these two men needs the result more than the process. Farke has a title medal and a promotion campaign to point to when patience wears thin. Jaissle, five games into English football, has a good story and not much else. Monday won’t settle that argument either way, but it’s the first fixture this season where the story alone might not be enough. That conversation continues at Hull for Newcastle next weekend, and against Crystal Palace for Leeds the day before — two more low-key tests of whether either team can start controlling matches instead of surviving them.

Two unbeaten teams – who will walk away the winner? Do you feel Jaissle has had a good start to the season? Join the conversation on X @mytoonarmy #NUFC

No Newcastle United shirt has ever crossed the touchline at The Den. Not in 133 years of the club’s history, not through 141 seasons of Millwall’s own. Tuesday night changes that — and it lands at an interesting moment for Matthias Jaissle, one month into the job, still building an identity in real time, and facing his first genuine selection puzzle rather than a straightforward team announcement.

The calculus, not the complication

Call it what it actually is: a rotation decision, and a healthy one at that. Whatever combination Jaissle sends out will still contain internationals, PIF-funded quality, and players capable of hurting a Championship side on their own terms. The question isn’t whether Newcastle can cope with missing faces — they can — it’s how far Jaissle rotates, and why.

Start with the calendar, because it explains more here than any team-sheet. Newcastle travel to Leeds United six days later, Monday 14 September at Elland Road, against a Whites side unbeaten through three league games and sitting ninth under Daniel Farke. Two away trips inside a week, the second a proper away-day rather than a formality, shapes selection more decisively than any single fitness concern. Whoever plays heavy minutes in Bermondsey has four or five days to recover before doing it again in Yorkshire, with only a home game against Hull the following weekend before the international break. This fortnight is the tightest squeeze of Newcastle’s autumn, and Millwall is where Jaissle has the most room to manage it.

Then there’s the question of continuity. Jaissle’s system is still being embedded — the pressing triggers, the relationships between midfield and front four — and four competitive matches unbeaten suggests those patterns are taking hold. A cup tie is a chance to change personnel while preserving the shape, not an invitation to tear it up. Expect the spine to shift — goalkeeper, a midfield voice — while the framework stays recognisable.

There’s also a squad-health dimension that has nothing to do with who’s fit and who isn’t. Several names have started every competitive game so far this season; part of what Jaissle will be weighing is workload distribution for that group specifically, with September about to compress hard and October offering little relief until the international break. At the other end of the squad, players like Lewis Miley, Nico González, Harvey Barnes, Anthony Elanga and Fabian Schär need competitive minutes to stay sharp and make their own case — a consideration about squad morale and depth as much as about Tuesday’s result.

None of which is to pretend the team sheet writes itself. Ewen Jaouen, first choice for cup exposure and the man who started the West Brom win, is now waiting on a specialist opinion after an ankle knock, handing the goalkeeping shirt to either Lukáš Hornicek or a recalled Nick Pope. Joelinton remains out with the thigh injury that has sidelined him all season, Dan Burn and William Osula are both unavailable, and Tino Livramento — back in training after summer calf surgery — won’t be risked from the start. Those absences narrow Jaissle’s options in specific positions; they don’t define the character of the side he picks.

Not a free hit

Whoever lines up for Newcastle shouldn’t expect an easy evening. Millwall arrive having just put four goals past Bolton Wanderers without reply — Caleb Taylor’s opener, a Lyndon Dykes brace, Camiel Neghli’s late fourth — a response to back-to-back beatings against Southampton and Wrexham that had threatened to sour Alex Neil’s start to the season. This is a side that finished third in the Championship last term and reached the play-offs; a mixed opening to this campaign undersells a squad with genuine top-half ambition and a manager who knows how to make a night at The Den uncomfortable for a bigger club.

The venue still carries its own reputation, even if it may not be fully tested on the night. The Den holds 20,146, capped at roughly 18,100 once away segregation is factored in, but cup football here rarely gets near that ceiling — the last Carabao Cup tie at this ground drew just 7,048, for Coventry’s visit last season. Newcastle’s own allocation is capped at 2,072, and reports out of Bermondsey suggest home sales have been sluggish too, with prices roughly double last year’s cup pricing landing awkwardly after back-to-back league defeats to Southampton and Wrexham. A sold-out first-ever NUFC visit would have made the better story; a stadium some way short of full wouldn’t be unusual for a midweek third-round tie, whatever the name on the away team sheet. Millwall’s own team news isn’t blemish-free — Josh Coburn, Casper De Norre, Tristan Crama, Ryan Leonard, Mihailo Ivanovic and Mathis Servais are all out, and Jenson Metcalfe serves a suspension — but the name worth knowing before kick-off is Lyndon Dykes.

The Scotland international arrived at The Den this summer via QPR, Birmingham City and Charlton, and took only five appearances to hit top form: two goals in that 4-0 demolition of Bolton, the best individual display by any Millwall player so far this season. At 6ft 2in he’s built to bully a defence in the air as much as run in behind it — exactly the kind of test an unfamiliar, rotated Newcastle back line should be wary of. Alex Neil has enough around him to set a direct, physical trap regardless: a double pivot screening the back four, width from Tairyk Arconte and Romain Esse, and Dykes the point of the spear.

A body of work worth trusting

Set against that is the case for calm. Jaissle’s four competitive matches in charge have returned two wins and two draws without defeat — a battling point at Liverpool, victory over West Brom in the last round of this competition, an assured 2-0 win at Tottenham, and Saturday’s fightback from two goals down to draw at Bournemouth. None of it has come through control for ninety minutes; this group has had to dig its way back into games rather than cruise through them, which is precisely the profile of evening Millwall are capable of engineering at The Den. That’s the real argument for trusting a rotated XI here: this group has already shown it can find a way when things aren’t straightforward.

Squad prediction

This is my own call rather than confirmed team news. Expect a 4-2-3-1: Pope given the nod in goal, the recall arriving through necessity rather than sentiment. Dedić at right-back, Botman and Thiaw retained as the centre-back pairing, Hall continuing at left-back with Livramento managed from the bench.

Ramsey and Steur take the pivot on merit as much as fixture logic: Ramsey’s twenty-seven minutes off the bench against Bournemouth were enough to earn him the start on their own, sharper in the middle of the park than either man he replaced, while Steur’s thirteen-minute cameo was brief but composed enough to suggest Jaissle already trusts him on the ball. Miley and González drop no further than the bench — reminded that these places are contested weekly, not owned, which is exactly the competition a squad this size needs. Willock keeps his advanced role after an encouraging opening month, with Murphy and Touré offering width — rare pitch time for a £42m asset who needs it as much as the club does. Fernandez-Pardo leads the line, brought in on deadline day as Woltemade’s direct replacement — his own loan to Juventus went through the same afternoon — and a cup start is a sensible way to fast-track his introduction outside the league’s white heat. Wissa, Miley, González, Elanga, Barnes and Schär provide the bench options if Millwall’s physicality starts to tell.

Score prediction

Millwall will make this uncomfortable before Newcastle make it safe. I’ll go 3-1 to the Magpies — a nervy opening period in which the hosts ask real questions of an unfamiliar back line, a scare or an equaliser somewhere around the hour mark, and enough individual quality from the bench and front four to pull clear in the closing stages. Not the routine passage into round four the odds suggest, but a passage all the same — and one Jaissle will want wrapped up with legs still in the tank for Elland Road.

Does Millwall have what it takes after a rocky start to the season to stop a buoyant Newcastle? Will Ramsey and Steur step in for the first choice pairing of Miley and Gonzalez? Join the conversation on X @mytoonarmy #NUFC