Newcastle fans among a crowd in excess of 39,000 at St James’ Park on Saturday had much to debate as they headed home from a slightly underwhelming 2-1 friendly defeat by Bayer Leverkusen. The bad news is that a suddenly youthful team still coming to terms with life without this summer’s departed stars, Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimarães, look more than a little undercooked before Liverpool’s visit on Premier League duty next Sunday. Late last year these teams drew a Champions League group stage game in Leverkusen but since then the Germans have reconstructed a then transitional squad and Newcastle dismantled theirs.
Eddie Howe’s sudden departure at the end of July has left Matthias Jaissle, late of Jeddah’s Al-Ahli, to pick up the managerial pieces. Despite this defeat on a day when Leverkusen looked to be playing within themselves, the 38-year-old German is already showing a few, albeit tentative, indications that he just might be able to put one of football’s most complicated jigsaws back together. If Malick Thiaw, Anthony Elanga and Yoane Wissa in particular appear re-energised by his coaching, Jaissle’s faith in the 17-year-old Mason Miley, the younger brother of the midfielder Lewis, was fully vindicated as the academy product shone at right-back.
If only he could find such a simple solution to filling the missing links left by Gordon, Tonali and Guimarães. At least Dan Burn is still around and will be Newcastle’s captain, with Joelinton as his deputy. The Brazilian, though, is injured and will miss the Liverpool game, while Burn was not involved here as Jaissle split his squad in two during a weekend that features another friendly here, against Strasbourg on Sunday.
Leverkusen represented the new manager’s first match in charge at St James’ Park but it was hardly the ideal start. Inside a minute his team were behind. When Ibrahim Maza manoeuvred the ball on to his left foot in the area, Newcastle’s new goalkeeper, Lukas Hornicek, was powerless to resist the resultant shot.
No matter that it was only a friendly, even Howe’s normally super-confident successor looked a little crestfallen. The good news for a coach who promises to prove more entertaining than his team – at least in their current incarnation – was that a reasonably strong starting XI improved incrementally during the first half and equalised shortly before half-time. Jaissle duly greeted Thiaw’s scoring header from Elanga’s corner with a prolonged bout of clapping.
By then he could also reflect favourably on a positive contribution from the Miley brothers. While Lewis looked his customarily assured self in central midfield on his first appearance since breaking a leg last spring, Mason’s efforts at right-back frequently frustrated Leverkusen’s Miguel Gutiérrez. It seemed thoroughly fitting that the latter was showered with praise from his manager when, late in the second half, he hobbled off with cramp.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
