Eddie Howe set to leave Newcastle United, Matthias Jaissle poised to replace him
Eddie Howe is set to leave his position as Newcastle United head coach, with Matthias Jaissle of Al Ahli poised to replace him.
Howe decided to remain at St. James’ Park at the end of last season but has since had a change of heart and will depart in the coming days after five years in charge.
The 48-year-old, who led Newcastle to their first trophy in 70 years with the 2025 Carabao Cup, has told the club he wants to take a break from football.
The situation is amicable and Newcastle are well prepared for his exit, with talks between Jaissle and the club at an advanced stage.
Jaissle, 38, is a two-time Asian Champions League winner with Al Ahli – who, like Newcastle, are majority owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).
The German, who spent his entire playing career with Hoffenheim, coached Red Bull Salzburg for two seasons, cementing his reputation by winning back to back Austrian Bundesliga titles and the Austrian Cup.
He joined Al Ahli in 2023, and has led them to consecutive Asian Champions League crowns in 2025 and 2026 with a brand of high-intensity, attacking football.
Matthias Jaissle has won consecutive Asian Champions League titles with Al Ahli (Yasser Bakhsh – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
Howe was appointed in November 2021, succeeding Steve Bruce when Newcastle were 19th in the Premier League, after a consortium led by PIF completed its takeover of the club.
He initially led Newcastle to top-flight safety before overseeing Champions League qualifications via a fourth-place league finish in 2022-23 and a top-five placing two seasons later, when Newcastle also won their first major domestic trophy since 1955 with victory over Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final.
Last term, however, saw a downturn in results. Newcastle finished 12th in the Premier League, and exited the Champions League at the last-16 stage with an 8-3 aggregate defeat to Barcelona. From January 7, they won just five of 17 league games, leaving Howe’s position under scrutiny.
Howe, though, remained as Newcastle boss following talks at the highest level of the club, which included a 25-strong delegation from PIF in a series of annual meetings at Matfen Hall in Northumberland.
During the summit, all parties acknowledged that the season was not good enough and cannot be repeated, but there was consensus that Howe should continue in post.
Newcastle are in the midst of another disruptive summer in the transfer market. They have sold Anthony Gordon to Barcelona and Sandro Tonali to Tottenham Hotspur in deals worth £69.3million and £100m, respectively, and are facing interest from Arsenal in Bruno Guimaraes, who wants to move to the Premier League champions.
Before joining Newcastle, Howe coached Bournemouth over two spells, either side of a season with Burnley.
‘Howe will forever be considered a club legend’
Analysis by Newcastle United correspondent George Caulkin
Howe’s departure can only come as a shock. Not, perhaps, in the context of last season and the edginess of this summer, but in the sense of meaning and finality. The man who changed everything at Newcastle has now gone.
Hyperbole? Howe led Newcastle to their first domestic trophy for 70 years. He finished the job which Kevin Keegan started back in the early 1990s and which a host of high-profile managers and players strained for and could not quite reach. For that, he will forever be considered a club legend.
Yet winning something has not been the gateway to overwhelming happiness. Being winners was hard for Howe and his team. Alexander Isak left last summer in contentious circumstances, Newcastle were rejected by a host of their leading targets and their recruitment was scattergun. The Premier League was a struggle. They never recovered.
This has already been a challenging close-season. Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali have left, while the new players Newcastle have brought in are young and unfinished. The uncertainty around Bruno Guimaraes, who wants to move to Arsenal, hangs over everything. With their opening match against Liverpool in a little over three weeks, they now have a new head coach to assimilate. All of this is sub-optimal.
Howe’s achievements should be celebrated, from leading the club out of the relegation zone in his first season in charge – which does not receive the credit that is due – to reaching two cup finals, qualifying for the Champions League twice, signing some astonishing players and finally winning something. In the early years, Newcastle stood for something. They were aggressive and proud.
Following that will not be straightforward and, in the short-term, Howe’s departure will do little to calm the angst which has been swirling around the club in recent weeks. Do the owners still mean business? Is the project still intact? Who are Newcastle now?
With Howe gone, an era has ended and it leaves Newcastle forever changed.
Who is Matthias Jaissle?
The below is an extract from an interview with Jaissle in January by The Athletic’s German football correspondent Sebastian Stafford-Bloor
Jaissle never intended to coach. He was a centre-back as a player and, by 18, having been signed from Stuttgart by their then manager Ralf Rangnick, was playing for Hoffenheim, becoming part of their journey up the leagues, and to Bundesliga promotion in 2008.
He was a Germany Under-21 international, too, until injury intervened. Jaissle suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear in a 2009 game against Hannover and was never the same. He retired at 26 but, thanks to (Ralf) Rangnick, by then RB Leipzig’s head of sport, was invited onto a trainee programme within the club’s youth department.
Jaissle worked as an assistant to current Stuttgart head coach Sebastian Hoeness, who was in charge of Leipzig’s under-16 side. In 2017, he became Alexander Zorniger’s assistant at Brondby, the Danish Super Liga club. And, by 2019, he had returned to the Red Bull network to become head coach of RB Salzburg’s under-18s.
Two years later came a series of fortunate breaks. First, he replaced Bo Svensson as coach of FC Liefering, Salzburg’s feeder club, when the Dane took over at Mainz. Then, when Jesse Marsch left Salzburg for their sister club in Leipzig, Jaissle was in position to succeed him.
He became head coach of the serial Austrian champions at just 33.
Jaissle wants his players to have agency on the ball, but for that expression to exist within a framework and to be supported by intense defensive work.
“I want stress on the opponent as soon as possible,” he says. “And when we win the ball, I want to go as quickly as possible towards the opponent’s goal. I’m very vertical in that approach.”
The Rangnick influence is clear. But as naturally as that comes to the players within the Red Bull system, in the world outside it is not the same.