Yoane Wissa's Future at Newcastle United: A Striker's Dilemma
Yoane Wissa walked into St James’ Park carrying the weight of a number. Not just any number, but Newcastle United’s No.9 – the shirt of Alan Shearer, the symbol of goals, swagger and expectation on Tyneside. Eight months on, that burden looks like it may be lifted from his shoulders far sooner than anyone imagined.
Signed from Brentford on deadline day in September, Wissa arrived as a reaction, not a long-term plan. Newcastle had just lost Alexander Isak to Liverpool and needed a striker, fast. Wissa, fresh from an impressive spell in west London, was handed the role of emergency solution and the most iconic shirt in the club’s history.
It never really started.
A knee injury on international duty wrecked his rhythm before he had even kicked a competitive ball for Newcastle. His debut didn’t come until December. By then, the season had moved on without him.
From that point, he was always chasing it. Twenty-four appearances in all competitions, most of them from the bench. Just three goals. Only one start in Newcastle’s last 16 fixtures. The club that had trumpeted his arrival as a statement signing now barely found room for him in the XI.
Behind the scenes, the mood has shifted.
According to The Athletic, Newcastle intend to actively listen to offers for Wissa in the summer window, even if it means taking a major financial hit only eight months after his arrival. The message from the board is clear: sentiment and sunk costs will not stand in the way of a reset.
Wissa is not agitating to leave. He is on a long-term contract and has told those around him he wants to stay, fight, and prove why he earned that move from Brentford in the first place. But the club’s hierarchy is working to a different timetable.
Fourteenth in the Premier League. No European football on the horizon. A squad that needs trimming and reshaping to stay on the right side of financial regulations. Newcastle’s summer is shaping up to be ruthless, and high-profile missteps are under review. Wissa’s transfer sits near the top of that list.
Eddie Howe has tried to protect his striker in public. Ahead of the clash with Brighton, the Newcastle manager spoke about the disjointed nature of Wissa’s season and how the constant interruptions prevented any real assessment of his true level.
“The most difficult part for Yoane is that he got back fit, there was a huge feeling inside of him that he wanted to rush back and show everybody how good he is, but we haven’t been able to train him in the way we normally would,” Howe said. “It was very stop-start and we didn’t see the best of him. I think a pre-season would really show the best of him.”
Supportive words, but not a promise. Howe stopped short of guaranteeing Wissa’s future, a telling omission at a time when the club is openly preparing for a major overhaul.
The story of how Wissa ended up at St James’ Park only underlines the sense of a deal done on the fly. Newcastle had gone after Joao Pedro. They had pushed for Hugo Ekitike. They had looked at Jorgen Strand Larsen. None of those moves materialised. With the clock ticking and no sporting director or chief executive in place, Newcastle pivoted late and landed Wissa.
The structure that allowed that scramble has since been rebuilt. David Hopkinson and Ross Wilson now occupy the key executive roles that were vacant when the Wissa deal was pushed through. Their arrival has sharpened the club’s recruitment process – and cast a harsher light on what many inside the club now view as an expensive panic buy.
That is the backdrop as the 2025-26 campaign winds down and attention turns to what comes next. Newcastle are already scouring the market for another striker, someone to bring reliable goals and genuine competition at the top end of the pitch. The No.9 shirt may yet change hands again.
For Wissa, the equation is brutally simple. The final games of the season are an audition. Either he finally shows Howe and the new recruitment team that there is a Newcastle career worth salvaging, or he uses those minutes to convince someone else, somewhere else, that he is still the player who lit up Brentford.
One way or another, his next move feels inevitable. The only question is whether it comes with redemption on Tyneside, or a fresh start far away from that heavy black-and-white No.9.
