Newcastle's summer was the sort that makes supporters wonder whether somebody has accidentally pressed the self-destruct button and then gone on annual leave.
Anthony Gordon joined Barcelona. Sandro Tonali moved to Tottenham for £100m. Bruno Guimaraes signed for champions Arsenal in a £75m deal. Kieran Trippier, one of the first and most important signings of the post-takeover era, departed on a free transfer.
Then Eddie Howe decided that five years of pouring himself into the job was enough.
It was not an orderly refresh. It looked like the foundations being ripped out.
Howe’s exit was especially unsettling because he had become so closely tied to Newcastle’s revival. He inherited a relegation-bound side, took them into the Champions League twice and delivered their first major trophy in 56 years.
His 84 Premier League victories are more than any other Newcastle manager has recorded, while his 46.9 per cent win rate is bettered only by Kevin Keegan.
There was no tidy succession plan to soften the blow. Howe left on July 31, less than a month before the Premier League season began, with his final game a 4-1 friendly defeat at Bristol City.
Matthias Jaissle was appointed five days later and asked to construct a team from the bits that remained and the teenagers Newcastle had spent much of the summer collecting.
Even allowing for the vast sums received, losing Gordon, Guimaraes and Tonali in one window was brutal. These were not veterans being moved on a year too late. They were three of Newcastle’s best players, all capable of improving elite teams and all, ultimately, willing to do exactly that elsewhere.
Yet those departures also removed a problem that could easily have swallowed the opening months of the season.
Had Guimaraes or Tonali remained after agitating for moves, every team selection, dropped point and post-match interview would have been dragged back towards their futures.
Jaissle would have inherited Howe’s side but not Howe’s authority over it, along with several stars wondering why they were still there.
Newcastle instead banked roughly £245m for that trio and cleared the dressing room of its most obvious uncertainties. What remained was a squad containing fewer famous names but rather more people committed to the immediate project. Sometimes the best solution to a player wanting to leave is to allow him to do so for an enormous fee.
That has given Jaissle room to begin again. The 38-year-old arrived with a reputation for intense, vertical football from Red Bull Salzburg and consecutive AFC Champions League triumphs with Al-Ahli.
There are familiar elements from Howe’s best Newcastle teams – pressure, physical commitment and quick attacks – but also subtle differences.
Jaissle’s side have appeared happier to draw opponents forward before attacking the space behind them, rather than trying to overwhelm every match through sheer force. The early evidence is undeniably limited, but also unexpectedly encouraging.
Newcastle opened their league season with a 2-2 draw against Liverpool at St James’ Park, conceding a penalty in the ninth minute of stoppage time after goals from Anthony Elanga and Joe Willock had put them within seconds of victory.
They then survived a lively Carabao Cup tie against West Brom, winning 3-2, before travelling to Tottenham and producing their most convincing performance so far.
What a GOAL from Yoane Wissa?! 🫨 pic.twitter.com/mjuHpaa4YY
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) August 29, 2026
The 2-0 victory was almost too neatly symbolic. Tonali lined up for Spurs; Nico Gonzalez, signed from Manchester City only days earlier, made his Newcastle debut in the midfield the Italian had vacated.
Gonzalez helped create both goals, including a sweeping diagonal pass in the move that ended with Elanga opening the scoring. Yoane Wissa added the second and Newcastle left north London unbeaten in three competitive games under their new manager.
Elanga and Wissa have been particularly important. Both endured disrupted first seasons on Tyneside but now look like players liberated by the reorganisation around them.
Elanga has scored in both Premier League games, while Wissa’s goal at Tottenham provided another reminder that Newcastle’s expensive 2025 recruitment was not necessarily beyond repair.
Some players did not need replacing. They needed better-defined jobs.
The new arrivals have supplied energy rather than instant celebrity. Goalkeeper Lukas Hornicek, full-back Amar Dedic and Gonzalez all started against Spurs. Bazoumana Toure scored on his competitive debut against West Brom, while Sean Steur has looked assured enough to suggest Ajax may regret allowing him to leave.
Aladji Bamba and Ewen Jaouen are longer-term investments, part of an obvious attempt to lower the squad’s age and create value rather than constantly buying at the top of the market.
That strategy carries risk. Newcastle finished 12th last season and have replaced proven Premier League performers with potential. Young signings do not all develop on schedule, and an injury to Wissa or Elanga could expose an attack still awaiting further reinforcement.
The arrival of Lille forward Matias Fernandez-Pardo adds another exciting option, but also another 21-year-old being asked to accelerate his education in public.
Nor should three matches be mistaken for proof that Newcastle have improved. Liverpool caused them problems, West Brom scored twice at St James’ Park and sterner examinations will arrive once opponents have studied Jaissle’s methods.
A squad that looks fresh in August can look thin by Christmas, particularly with European demands to manage.
But the mood has changed. What initially resembled an exodus now feels closer to a separation from a cycle that had already run its course.
Howe’s Newcastle peaked gloriously with a trophy and two Champions League qualifications, but last season’s slide to 12th suggested that repeating the old formula with diminishing conviction was no longer enough.
Jaissle has inherited fewer stars, lower expectations and considerably more freedom. He has a young squad, money reinvested across several positions and senior players such as Wissa, Elanga, Willock and Joelinton who suddenly carry greater responsibility.
Most importantly, he is working with people who have chosen Newcastle rather than those awaiting their next move.
Nobody on Tyneside would have designed the summer this way. Newcastle lost an outstanding manager, three elite players and much of the certainty painstakingly built since 2021.
But certainty had already become stagnation.
Two league matches cannot establish that the overhaul has succeeded, but they have provided something that seemed in desperately short supply a month ago: the sense that Newcastle might be moving forward again.
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