Matthias Jaissle: Coaching Analysis

Eddie Howe resigned. That is the unusual part. Newcastle did not sack a manager who had won them their first domestic trophy in seventy years; on 31 July 2026 he stepped away of his own accord, and the club, with a process already at an advanced stage, appointed Matthias Jaissle five days later.

Jaissle is 38, German, and the first foreign head coach at St James' Park since Rafael Benítez. He arrives from Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia with back-to-back AFC Champions League titles, and before that two Austrian Bundesliga titles at Red Bull Salzburg.

Five competitive games in, Newcastle are unbeaten. This profile covers what he actually does, why the fit was so deliberate, and where the first month has already shown cracks.

The road here

Jaissle was born on 5 April 1988 in Nürtingen, in Baden-Württemberg. He was a centre-back, five years in VfB Stuttgart's youth system before joining Hoffenheim in 2007 under Ralf Rangnick.

He spent seven years at Hoffenheim, winning back-to-back promotions to take the club into the Bundesliga for the first time, and made 23 league appearances as they finished seventh in 2008-09. Severe injuries forced him to retire at 25, which is young enough that coaching was less a second career than a redirected first one.

He was assistant manager at Brøndby from 2017 to 2019, then took Red Bull Salzburg's Under-18s. His first senior job came at FC Liefering in January 2021, aged 32, where he took the club to a runners-up finish in the Austrian second tier, equalling their best ever.

That earned him the Salzburg job in the summer of 2021, succeeding Jesse Marsch. His first season brought a domestic double, the Austrian Bundesliga and the Austrian Cup, with a squad containing Karim Adeyemi and Benjamin Šeško, and a first ever qualification for the Champions League knockout stages out of a group with Sevilla, Lille and Wolfsburg. Salzburg retained the title the following year. Across two seasons he won 64 of 93 competitive matches and never lost a league game at home.

In 2023 he moved to Al-Ahli, newly promoted to the Saudi Pro League, inheriting a squad with Riyad Mahrez, Roberto Firmino and Allan Saint-Maximin. Third place and continental qualification came first; then the 2024-25 AFC Champions League Elite, the club's first continental title and the end of a nine-year wait for silverware. Last season he added the Saudi Super Cup, beating Al-Nassr on penalties, and retained the Champions League Elite. Ninety wins in 123 games across three years.

He inherited a Newcastle side that had finished 12th, and a squad about to be dismantled. Anthony Gordon went to Barcelona, Sandro Tonali to Tottenham, and Bruno Guimarães to Arsenal three days after Jaissle's appointment. Eight senior players arrived, among them Nico González from Manchester City and Matias Fernandez-Pardo from Lille.

How his teams play with the ball

Jaissle describes his football as “very vertical”. When his team wins the ball the first thought is forward, towards the opposition goal, rather than sideways or backwards.

The base shape at Newcastle is a 4-2-3-1, with a double pivot. In build-up one of those pivots, usually Nico González, drops towards or between the centre-backs to make a back three, the full-backs push high, and the structure becomes a diamond with the goalkeeper at its base.

The progression route is not all direct, though. At Al-Ahli he built patiently and short from the back, kept the ball central in the early phase, tended to progress up the left, and then entered the final third sharply through quick short passes in central midfield, with long diagonal switches to the far flank as a release valve. At Newcastle that diagonal has become a signature: the opening goal at Tottenham came from a González long ball, an aerial knockdown and an Anthony Elanga finish.

The numbers describe a transition team rather than a possession one. Newcastle have averaged around 46% of the ball, and Elanga has been running more than almost anyone in the division. The intent is to win the ball high and attack before the opposition defence can reset, not to control games through the ball.

This is the important nuance in his evolution. Salzburg-era Jaissle played one fixed shape, a 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond, and pressed relentlessly. Al-Ahli Jaissle added patience and game management without abandoning the principles. As he puts it: “It is not about formations that much. It is more how you want to play, how you want to attack, how you want to defend. If you understand that and the players understand that, tactically you are much more flexible and the formation is not that important.”

How his teams play without the ball

Counter-pressing is the idea he is most closely associated with. The moment his team loses the ball, players do not retreat; they swarm the area of possession immediately and try to win it back before the opponent can settle, ideally in a dangerous position.

Behind that sits a high press and a high defensive line, holding the team compact and short so that the counter-press has bodies near the ball. Out of possession the 4-2-3-1 becomes a flat 4-4-2, with the number 10 stepping up alongside the striker.

The honest ledger is that the defensive work has been the shakier half of the start. Newcastle have looked vulnerable to switches of play, defending narrow and shifting slowly, which is how Bournemouth opened the scoring against them. The counter-press has at times been disorganised, committing players and leaving the wide channels open. And the flat 4-4-2 block has shown little staggering between the lines, which makes it playable through the middle.

Their goalkeeper has covered a good deal of this. Lukáš Horníček has been among the best shot-stoppers in the division by goals prevented in the opening weeks, which is both a compliment to him and a warning about the volume of chances reaching him.

Jaissle has not oversold any of it: “I said from the first day, there will be ups and downs. We saw within the game today a down but also an up.”

The players he picks

Jaissle picks for engine first. Every position in his structure carries a pressing and counter-pressing workload, so repeat-sprint capacity and the willingness to do it in the 90th minute are the entry requirements. The early beneficiaries have been the runners: Elanga, Yoane Wissa and Joe Willock have all produced output well beyond last season's.

In the double pivot he needs one player who can drop and build, and another who covers ground. González's first weeks have shown the specific quality he wants there, and Jaissle praised exactly that judgement: knowing “when to deliver in the last line but also when to slow down the game a little.”

Full-backs must be genuine athletes, pushing high to support the attack and recovering when possession turns over, which in a high-line team is a long way to run.

Wissa's verdict on the change is worth repeating, because it captures the buy-in: “Eddie Howe had done a top job at the club, we need to respect that. But a new manager came with a new identity. Every part of the game we do precise.”

On the training ground

Jaissle is a Red Bull product, and that pathway trains a game model by repeating its core moments rather than drilling isolated techniques. Pressing triggers, counter-pressing reactions and the transition to goal are rehearsed as small-sided games with transition rules, because the model lives in the two or three seconds after possession changes hands.

He is unusually open about where his ideas come from: Rangnick, who he played under; Thomas Tuchel in his youth; Klopp for transitions; Guardiola for structure and balance in possession; and De Zerbi's build-up. “It's not about copying other coaches,” he says, “it's just about being inspired by them.” That is a coach who thinks in components rather than allegiances, which is probably why his Al-Ahli side looked different from his Salzburg one without losing its identity.

The Newcastle job has come with very little preparation time: appointed in August, with the squad turning over around him. “We haven't had much training time,” he said in September, “but I'm impressed with how open-minded the players are, how fast they learn.”

The continuity argument is real. Howe's Newcastle already pressed hard and played with intensity, so the squad was not being asked to learn a foreign language, only a dialect. Jaissle put it plainly: “It's not a complete new team and the DNA of Newcastle United is a good fit to the playing style I like to see.”

What you can steal for your team

Counter-pressing is the highest-value habit an amateur team can build, because the five seconds after you lose the ball decide whether you defend a counter or start an attack. Our guide to coaching counter-pressing covers the principles, and using transition games in training shows how to load it into a session without inventing new drills.

Press on triggers rather than enthusiasm. Jaissle's teams jump on specific pictures, and so can yours: our guides to pressing triggers and coaching a high press name the cues, and the Press Trigger Game and Wide Press Trap train them directly.

Learn from his problem as much as his strengths. A narrow block that shifts slowly gets beaten by a switch, every level, every week. Our guide to defensive compactness explains the trade-off between narrow and wide, and the Wide Channel Shifting Game trains the sideways sprint that saves you. If you want the high line as well, read coaching the defensive line and offside trap first.

Then make the reward worth the running: our guides to attacking transitions and coaching the 4-2-3-1 cover the break and the shape it comes from, with the Central Turnover Attack drill for the moment itself.

For complete pressing and transition session plans, join Coach Notes Pro.