Eddie Howe Leaves Newcastle United as Matthias Jaissle Set to Take Over

Eddie Howe’s time at Newcastle United is over. Not with a lap of honour, not with a farewell under the lights at St James’ Park, but with a 4-1 pre-season defeat to Bristol City and a sudden break in the middle of July.

Sources have told BBC Sport that Howe will leave the club with immediate effect, with Al-Ahli coach Matthias Jaissle expected to be appointed as his successor. It is a brutal, clinical end for the man who dragged Newcastle from relegation trouble to the Champions League and a long-awaited domestic trophy.

From saviour to exit door

Howe arrived in November 2021, a month after the Saudi Public Investment Fund took control and changed the club’s horizons overnight. He inherited a team staring down the barrel of relegation. He leaves having delivered a Carabao Cup, two Champions League qualifications and the club’s most sustained period of top-flight success in a generation.

The numbers are stark. Newcastle won 84 of their 179 Premier League games under Howe, drawing 38 and losing 57. No manager has ever overseen more Premier League wins for the club. Only Kevin Keegan can better his league win percentage of 46.9%.

There were landmark moments everywhere you looked. The 2023 surge into the Champions League. The 2025 return to Europe’s elite. The 2025 Carabao Cup triumph that ended a 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy. For a fanbase used to false dawns and what-ifs, Howe turned hope into something more tangible.

Yet the end has been anything but smooth.

A slide that never really stopped

Newcastle’s league form last season never matched the standards Howe had set. A side that finished fifth in 2024-25 slumped to 12th, losing 17 of 38 Premier League matches. The team still punched in the cups – last-16 in the Champions League before an 8-3 aggregate defeat to Barcelona, and a run to the EFL Cup semi-finals in defence of their trophy – but the domestic consistency vanished.

The strain was visible. Performances dipped in the second half of the campaign, and so did Howe. Supporters noticed it; so did the board.

In March, chief executive David Hopkinson insisted Newcastle were “not having those conversations” about a change of manager “at the moment”. The qualifier hung in the air. The conversations, clearly, have now been had.

Transfer tension and a changing project

Beneath the surface, the relationship between manager and project had begun to fray.

Well-placed sources indicated Howe was surprised by elements of the club’s transfer business this summer. He understood the need to sell to comply with financial rules, but the scale and timing of the departures cut deep. Earlier this year, he had resolved to stay at St James’ Park despite the inevitability of sales. Over the summer, that perspective shifted.

Newcastle had spent around £240m on new players 12 months ago, a heavy outlay designed to keep them among the Premier League’s elite. Yet the squad Howe now leaves behind looks very different to the one he built.

Alexander Isak, the club’s star striker, has gone to Liverpool – a move that hit Howe hard. In January he called losing Isak “ever-challenging” and repeatedly stressed in press conferences that he needed reinforcements to keep Newcastle competitive.

Those reinforcements never truly arrived in the way he wanted. Instead, more pillars were removed. Sandro Tonali has joined Tottenham. Anthony Gordon has gone to Barcelona. Arsenal are chasing captain Bruno Guimaraes. The core of Howe’s side is being dismantled in real time.

The manager who specialised in improving players and building a ferocious, front-foot team was watching key pieces walk out of the door. At some point, the equation stopped making sense.

A fanbase stunned by the timing

If the decision to part ways had been made, many around the club feel the moment to act was weeks ago, not in the middle of pre-season.

“The timing, for me, is the thing that is difficult to understand,” said Charlotte Robson of the True Faith: Newcastle United Podcast. She pointed out that May – with a host of high-calibre managers on the market and the season’s emotional toll still fresh – looked a more natural moment for what she called an “amicable separation”.

Others are less diplomatic. “This is a total disaster,” wrote one supporter, Roger, describing Howe as the “cool headed master tactician” behind Newcastle’s recent rise and warning that the club now “look like a serious relegation prospect”.

Hazel, a season-ticket holder, called herself “heartbroken” and said Howe had performed “nothing short of miracles” in turning the team around and winning the cup despite management changes, PSR pressures and injuries. For her, the optimism around the new season “has just evaporated. Same old Newcastle.”

Tom, another fan, focused on the calendar as much as the decision. “If there was ever a worst possible time to lose a manager, it’s now: middle of pre-season,” he said, arguing that this could “set us back years” and noting the lack of proven Premier League experience among the new arrivals.

Not every voice is apocalyptic. Simon, while understanding frustration at last season, warned those who had pushed for change to “be careful what they’ve wished for” and insisted Howe should leave with “everyone’s best wishes”.

The tone is mixed, but one theme runs through it: gratitude. One supporter, Ben, summed it up as Howe giving Newcastle their “spark back” – rescuing them from a relegation scrap, returning them to the Champions League, reviving careers and producing some of the most fearless football St James’ Park has seen in years.

Enter Matthias Jaissle

Into this emotional storm steps Matthias Jaissle, the 36-year-old German currently in charge of Al-Ahli in the Saudi Pro League and expected to be confirmed as Howe’s replacement.

Jaissle, known for his aggressive, high-energy style from his time at Red Bull Salzburg, will inherit a club in transition. The squad is being reshaped under financial constraints, key leaders may yet depart, and the Premier League has already shown little patience for slow starts.

He also follows a manager who “got” the club and the city, as many supporters put it, and who leaves behind a powerful connection with the stands as well as an impressive record in the dugout.

Howe’s reign ends not with a grand farewell but with a friendly defeat to Bristol City and a sense of unfinished business. Jaissle’s begins with expectation, scepticism and a fanbase still processing the loss of the man who made them believe again.

Newcastle have chosen change at the most delicate point of the summer. The question now is simple, and unforgiving: was this bold timing, or a gamble that could reshape the club’s trajectory for years to come?