Eddie Howe Leaves Newcastle as Jaissle Awaits

Eddie Howe’s Newcastle reign is over. Not at the end of a season, not after a farewell lap of honour, but in the middle of pre-season, after a 4-1 defeat to Bristol City in a friendly that now reads like a full stop.

Sources have told BBC Sport that Howe will leave the club with immediate effect, bringing down the curtain on an era that dragged Newcastle from relegation anxiety to Champions League nights and a long‑awaited domestic trophy. Matthias Jaissle, currently in charge of Al-Ahli in the Saudi Pro League, is expected to step in as his successor.

For a fanbase that had just started to believe Newcastle were done with chaos, the timing lands like a punch.

From revival to rupture

Howe walked into St James’ Park in November 2021, a month after the Saudi Public Investment Fund completed its takeover and changed the club’s horizons overnight. He replaced Steve Bruce with Newcastle in trouble, and for a while his story was one of relentless ascent.

He ended a 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy by lifting the 2025 Carabao Cup.

He took Newcastle into the Champions League in 2023 and again in 2025.

He rebuilt players who looked lost, changed the tempo of the place, and turned St James’ Park into a venue where big sides came under siege.

The numbers back up the feeling. Newcastle won 84 of their 179 Premier League games under Howe, drawing 38 and losing 57. No Newcastle manager has ever overseen more top-flight wins. Only Kevin Keegan can better his Premier League win percentage at the club, Howe finishing on 46.9%.

Yet football rarely allows a clean arc. The decline crept in, then accelerated.

Newcastle finished fifth in 2024-25, a campaign that still carried promise. Last season, the bottom fell out of their league form. They slumped to 12th, losing 17 of 38 Premier League matches. The Champions League run reached the last-16 before Barcelona dismantled them 8-3 on aggregate. Their EFL Cup defence ended in the semi-finals.

The toll on Howe was there for everyone to see. The football lost its bite. The manager, usually the embodiment of intensity and detail, looked drained.

Transfers, tension and a changing picture

Inside the club, the mood shifted over the summer.

Well-placed sources indicated Howe was surprised by aspects of Newcastle’s transfer business, even though he understood the pressure to sell. Earlier this year he had resolved to stay at St James’ Park regardless of the inevitable departures required by financial rules. Somewhere between that decision and the end of July, his perspective changed.

Newcastle had spent around £240m on new players 12 months ago, a statement of intent that fuelled talk of a sustained push at the top. The reality since has been far more jagged.

Howe was left deeply frustrated by the sale of Alexander Isak to Liverpool. In January he called losing Isak “ever-challenging” and used multiple press conferences to underline the need for reinforcements. The warning lights were flashing.

They only grew brighter this summer.

• Sandro Tonali has gone to Tottenham.
• Anthony Gordon has joined Barcelona.
• Arsenal are now chasing captain Bruno Guimaraes.

Each departure stripped away another layer of the side Howe had built. The project he had signed up for began to look very different from the one now taking shape.

Back in March, chief executive David Hopkinson had insisted Newcastle were “not having those conversations” about changing manager “at the moment”. A few months on, the conversations have not only happened; they have produced a brutal conclusion.

Shock, anger and gratitude in the stands

The reaction from supporters captures the confusion of the moment: admiration for Howe, anxiety about what comes next, and disbelief at the calendar.

“The timing, for me, is the thing that is difficult to understand,” said Charlotte Robson of the True Faith: Newcastle United Podcast, reflecting a widespread sense that if a change was coming, it should have been made in May, when elite managers were on the market and pre-season plans had not yet hardened.

Others looked beyond the spreadsheets and league tables to the human cost.

It had been obvious, many felt, that Howe needed a break. His intensity, his visible emotional investment in the team, the club and the city, had been one of the things they cherished. That same intensity seemed to weigh heavier as results dipped. The poor performances late last season looked to be taking a visible toll.

Among the fan messages, there is a thread of gratitude that runs deeper than the anger.

“Eddie Howe gave Newcastle its spark back,” wrote one supporter, recalling the escape from the relegation scrap, the return of Champions League football and the fearless attacking football that turned nights at St James’ Park into events again. Another called him a “local hero”, even though he never pretended to be anything other than a guest in the city.

For some, this is nothing short of a catastrophe.

“This is a total disaster,” said another fan. “For years, Eddie Howe has been the cool headed master tactician and inspiration of the club’s success. He will be difficult to replace. Right now Newcastle look like a serious relegation prospect.”

The fear is not just about losing a manager. It is about losing direction.

One season-ticket holder admitted to being “heartbroken”, pointing out that, despite injuries, PSR constraints and boardroom changes, Howe “did a reasonable job to hold things together”. Optimism about the season ahead, she said, “has just evaporated. Same old Newcastle.”

Another supporter called this “the worst possible time” to lose a manager – in the middle of pre-season, after the loss of key players and with most of the summer’s managerial carousel already over. Young talent has arrived, but there is precious little proven Premier League experience. The worry is that this cocktail, without Howe’s steady hand, could drag Newcastle backwards.

Even those who had grown frustrated with last season’s slump are wary. The “Eddie Howe out” voices, one fan warned, “need to be careful what they’ve wished for.”

Jaissle’s challenge and Newcastle’s next step

Into this maelstrom steps Matthias Jaissle, if his appointment is finalised as expected.

The 36-year-old has impressed in his coaching career and fits the profile of a progressive, modern manager. But he will walk into a club that has just parted with a figure who, in the modern era, stands alongside Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson in terms of impact on the mood and ambition of Tyneside.

He inherits a squad stripped of some of its stars, a fanbase emotionally tied to his predecessor, and a league campaign that will not wait for anyone to settle in.

Howe leaves with a record that will be hard to eclipse and a legacy that goes beyond numbers. He reconnected Newcastle with its own sense of possibility, then watched as circumstances, injuries, sales and fatigue chipped away at the edifice he had built.

The club has chosen to turn the page in the most delicate moment of the summer. Whether that decision marks the start of a bolder chapter or the beginning of another familiar Newcastle unravelling will define the next few years on Tyneside.