Newcastle United were booed off at St James’ Park on Monday night after Thierno Barry’s 49th-minute goal gave Everton a 1-0 Premier League win. It was the second time in a matter of days that David Moyes’ side had beaten Matthias Jaissle’s team, and it left serious questions over a head coach who is only three months into a four-year contract.
The boos started at half-time, when Newcastle went in without a single shot on target, and came back louder at the final whistle. One observer called it the most apathetic atmosphere since the Public Investment Fund takeover five years ago. The defeat leaves Newcastle 13th in the table, while Everton climbed to seventh.
By Ahmad Ali, Sports Editor
A goalkeeping error and a night of frustration
The decisive moment came early in the second half and owed more to a Newcastle error than to Everton’s brilliance. Tyrique George’s shot should have been a routine save for goalkeeper Lukas Hornicek, but he let it squirm under his body, and Barry was left with a simple finish into an unguarded net. Newcastle appealed for a foul on Fabian Schar and for offside, but VAR let the goal stand.
Barry’s goal was his fourth in the league this season, and it was enough because Newcastle offered so little in reply. Newcastle had 17 shots to Everton’s 16 and 52 per cent of possession, but the detail shows a different game:
- Newcastle managed two shots on target to Everton’s five.
- Their first effort on target, a tame attempt from Yoane Wissa, did not arrive until around the 85th minute.
- Expected goals favoured the visitors, 2.15 to 1.47.
- Only 22 per cent of Newcastle’s long balls found a teammate.
Groans could be heard inside the first 15 minutes, and at the interval a fan behind the technical area shouted “sort it out” at Jaissle. Late on, substitute Jacob Ramsey, who had come on in the second half, was booked twice in the space of 86 seconds in stoppage time. He will miss Saturday’s trip to Fulham.
Jaissle takes the blame
Jaissle did not hide from it afterwards. “I have to take the responsibility,” he said. “We did not transfer the things we did in training. Hitting long balls all the time, that was not the plan. We were not brave enough to play short passes.”
He also acknowledged how quickly his players had wilted as the crowd turned. “As soon as the referee blew his whistle, the plan disappeared,” he said. “We could feel the anger and the frustration, I felt it on the touchline. We are low on confidence and it shows.”
That honesty may buy him sympathy, but a side that abandons its game plan at the first sign of trouble at home is a side that does not yet believe in its coach’s ideas. Jaissle has also stuck with his formation and tactics as results have worsened.
Moyes, by contrast, was relaxed. “We probably had better chances in the first half,” the Everton manager said, before adding: “We want to get back to the top end of the league, it is incredibly tight.” Defender James Tarkowski called it “probably our best performance of the season”. It was Everton’s first away league win of the campaign and their first on the road in the Premier League since February.
How Newcastle got here
The scale of the drop is hard to overstate. Jaissle arrived in the summer to replace Eddie Howe, who left on 31 July after a spell that brought the club Champions League football and ended a long wait for silverware. Newcastle chief executive David Hopkinson called the German a “rockstar” appointment earlier in the season. Now, three months later, the mood has changed sharply.
Monday’s loss was Newcastle’s fourth defeat in five games in all competitions. It came just days after Everton knocked them out of the EFL Cup with a 3-1 win at the Hill Dickinson Stadium. In the league, it was a fourth defeat in six top-flight matches.
For a club whose ownership has spent heavily to make Newcastle regular challengers at the top, sitting in the bottom half in early November is a long way short of the target. More worrying still, a home crowd that pushed the team on under Howe is now booing them.
What comes next for Jaissle
The fixture list offers no let-up. After Saturday’s trip to Fulham, Newcastle face this run:
- Arsenal at home on 21 November
- Brighton away on 29 November
- Manchester United at home on 2 December
- Sunderland at home in the Tyne-Wear derby on 6 December
Three of those games are at St James’ Park, where the team’s problems are now most obvious. Another defeat in front of a hostile crowd could quickly turn questions into a crisis.
There is no sign yet that the hierarchy is considering a change, and sacking a head coach this early would be an admission that the summer appointment was a mistake. Still, Jaissle’s own words point to what he must fix: a team low on confidence and unwilling to play the football he wants. Unless that changes soon, starting at Craven Cottage, the jeers at St James’ Park are unlikely to be the last.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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