Newcastle United's Reality Check Against Everton in Pre-Season
The roar over the Murrayfield tannoy promised “passion and world-class football from the very first whistle.”
That was ambitious.
What Newcastle United and Everton served up in Edinburgh was something different: a sharp, slightly bruising reality check for Matthias Jaissle, a week and a half out from the Premier League kick-off.
Everton ran out 3-1 winners. The scoreline felt fair. The warning for Newcastle felt louder.
Bright start, soft centre
For 20 minutes, this looked like Jaissle’s kind of night.
Newcastle were bold, front-foot, and refreshingly fearless. Bazoumana Toure, again, was the live wire. The new signing tore down the left, stretching Everton and hinting at a breakout season with his pace and willingness to run at people.
But promise without ruthlessness rarely survives at this level.
Newcastle carved out chances and wasted them. The misses piled up; so did the unease at the back. As the first half wore on, the gaps appeared, the composure frayed, and Everton began to sense there was something soft to exploit.
The opener, when it came in the 27th minute, was painfully simple.
James Tarkowski launched a straightforward ball over the top. Sven Botman misjudged it, Thierno Barry didn’t. The Everton forward nipped in, raced clear and forced panic. Lewis Hall did well to get back and make a recovery tackle, but his clearance only reached Harrison Armstrong, who calmly squared for Barry to finish past Lukas Hornicek from inside the box.
On the touchline, Jaissle slammed his palm into his other hand, then immediately urged his players forward again. He had seen them come from behind to beat Valencia 2-1 in his first friendly at the weekend. He wanted a similar response.
He didn’t get it.
Penalty blow and travelling taunts
Instead, the game slipped further away within minutes.
Iliman Ndiaye made it 2-0 from the spot after Joelinton was harshly penalised for a challenge on Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall in the area. The contact was there, but the decision felt soft. The damage, though, was very real.
Behind the goal, the Everton fans lapped it up.
“Going down, going down, going down,” they chanted, relishing the moment and the scoreline in a stadium more used to scrums than high presses.
For Newcastle, the rest of the half became an exercise in damage limitation and quiet reflection. The early fluency had gone. The youth of the side suddenly looked like inexperience.
Young core, old problems
This was not the Newcastle of Eddie Howe’s peak nights.
Harvey Barnes and Jacob Murphy, who both played in February’s Premier League defeat at Goodison Park, started this one on the bench. The XI here told the story of a summer reset.
Eight starters were 25 or under. Joelinton, wearing the captain’s armband, and Yoane Wissa were the elder statesmen at 29. Around them, a raw group tried to knit together a new identity on the fly.
There are still important pieces to come back. Dan Burn, Lewis Miley and Tino Livramento remain to be reintegrated, though all three are unlikely to be ready together for the opener against Liverpool. Even with them, the gaps are obvious.
Jaissle knows it. So does sporting director Ross Wilson, watching from the stands at Murrayfield.
“You all see the matches,” Jaissle said afterwards. “You are also smart enough to see the needs in the squad. I will be always consistent with my approach. We handle these things internally. We are aware of what we need. Let’s see now. There is still some time.”
A “vacuum” to fill
The word that keeps coming back from the new head coach is “vacuum.”
He used it again here, for the second time in as many days, when asked about the departures of Bruno Guimaraes, Sandro Tonali, Anthony Gordon and Kieran Trippier earlier in the summer.
“You cannot change things really quickly,” he said. “It’s a really young team at the moment so there are vacuums where players need to step up. We fill these positions we lost with the experienced players, but that’s also the process.”
Right now, that process feels only part-complete.
Newcastle want a right-back. They want an older central midfielder. Depending on how Jaissle judges what he has, there could be another signing on top of that before the window closes on 1 September.
He knows late arrivals come with a cost. “If you make new signings at the end of the transfer window, they usually need time,” he said. “Usually it takes time to adapt to the Premier League.”
Time is exactly what he doesn’t have much of.
Everton twist the knife
On the pitch, Everton made sure the scoreline reflected their control.
With 73 minutes gone, Tyrique George drilled in a third to make it 3-0. That was the cue for some Newcastle supporters to head for the exits, long before any final whistle or glimpse of the solar eclipse that had been talked about in the build-up.
For those who stayed, there was at least a late punch back.
Harvey Barnes, introduced from the bench, arrived at the back post to slam home Jacob Murphy’s cross and pull one back. A consolation, yes, but also a reminder that there is still quality in this squad, still players who know how to affect games.
Barnes and Murphy were on the pitch when Newcastle lost at Everton in the league in February. This time, they were part of a very different landscape: a new head coach, a younger core, and a team still trying to understand itself.
Little time, big decisions
The 3-1 defeat will not define Newcastle’s season. Pre-season never does.
But it did underline the size of Jaissle’s task. The structure is not yet solid. The attack is lively but wasteful. The spine is missing experience and authority.
There are still a couple of friendlies left before Liverpool arrive at St James’ Park next week. Not much of a runway.
“Those are all things we consider, but we are all still positive,” Jaissle insisted. “We all want to go in the right direction. We have these goals and there’s many stones along the way thrown in that path, but we need to get rid of them.”
The question now is simple: can Newcastle clear those stones quickly enough, or will nights like Murrayfield become an early theme of the season rather than a pre-season warning?
