Reasons to be fearful or cause to be cheerful? 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 very 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.
“Mason’s a young lad with the attitude we need; he has the right heart and the right quality,” said Jaissle as he sipped an energy drink intended to replace the body’s lost electrolytes. 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.
“It’s a big challenge,” he said. “It’s a big transition.”
Jaissle cut a restless figure as he prowled the home technical area, sometimes straying far too far outside its confines for the liking of match officials.
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. With England’s Tino Livramento sidelined by calf trouble, Miley Jr is in real contention to start against Liverpool.
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Yet in eight days’ time another right-back, Benfica’s Amar Dedic, could well have been added to Newcastle’s roster. The 23-year-old, who can also operate at left-back, previously played for Jaissle at RB Salzburg and, on Saturday night, appeared close to finalising a move to Tyneside.
Once that deal is done attention will doubtless turn to filling the midfield chasm left by Tonali and Guimarães.
Although the 18-year-old Sean Steur – one of four players aged 20 or under signed by Newcastle since June – showed off some nice touches, the former Ajax prodigy betrayed his inexperience at times.
Players with more mature presence are clearly required but Marseille’s Pierre-Emile Højbjerg has declined a £13m move to north-east England and João Palhinha is still to be persuaded to leave Bayern Munich in order to plug the leadership vacuum.
On this evidence Leverkusen’s new manager, Carles Martínez, recently imported from Toulouse, might be reluctant to do a job swap with his Newcastle counterpart. Martínez’s side improved after the second-half introduction of the dangerous forward Patrick Schick and few Newcastle fans would argue the visitors did not deserve to win courtesy of Victor Boniface’s late rolled finish, with that opening created when the Nigerian expertly turned Steur.
How Jaissle, who looks to still be fathoming out how to unlock Nick Woltemade’s real yet still latent talent, could do with similar attacking incision.
Asked if Liverpool were arriving in Toon too soon, he initially replied: “We’ll do our best,” before turning upbeat. “We’ll keep using positivity,” he said. “I like these challenges. We are not concerned. I can’t wait.”