Is it time to admit that Newcastle United have made a huge mistake?

“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

After another shocker of a Newcastle United performance against Everton last night, there is a growing anger and frustration in the fanbase with the direction (or lack of) of the team on field.

Consistent underperformers, no clear strategy, and players proven not to be good enough are selected regardless, though to be fair, managing to be toothless up top as well as all over at the back is impressive.

The knives are sharpening for Matthias Jaissle and he’s looking to be all mouth and no trousers. But for me, appointing Jaissle, isn’t the biggest mistake we’ve made in the last year or so, that dubious honour goes to the appointment of Ross Wilson (pictured at the top with David Hopkinson).

You might think and say well Wilson actually had a pretty decent CV, on paper it looks good, he was involved at Southampton when they brough Van Dijk in, was at Rangers when they broke Celtic’s grip on the SPL and was at Forest when they stayed up and then qualified for Europe.

Delve a bit deeper though and Rangers fans tend to give credit to his predecessor and are still trying to get rid of some of his flops and elsewhere while he’s had successes his overall recruitment strategy is scattergun at best. Theres no clear player type of strategy picked up, very opportunistic and he’s got good players at good prices (particularly getting Anderson from us) but it seems the strategy is slinging a lot at the wall and seeing what sticks.

If you look back since the takeover we’ve had two highly thought of Directors of football come in and go not long afterwards due to ‘issues’ with others at the club, so despite having a reasonable CV he didn’t come in with as big a reputation and to this observer his primary attribute was he was affable to Eddie and his nephew, which at the time made some sense as Eddie had put together an all time season in 24/25 and looked like he’d be our manager for years to come even after that summer of 25.

So Ross Wilson came in after that summer, which now with the benefit of hindsight has been nothing short of disastrous, with Elanga, Wissa and Ramsey being total overpays (as well as two of them debatably being our biggest wastes of money ever) and Woltemade being a glass slipper when we needed a steel toe capped boot.

Of course, we can’t put any of that on Wilson as he didn’t join till afterwards and it would be a challenge for even the best directors of football to deal with the fallout of it all.

The first warning signs for me came in the January 26 transfer window, when the team was on the ropes, Eddie was struggling and we didn’t bring in any first team recruits to assist a struggling squad. Now I know some of you will bring up the likes of PSR, FFP, SKY 6, Ashley, the Illuminati as reasons why we didn’t spend, but even one signing could have reinvigorated the squad and at least limited the late season slide we went on.

The risk is we’d have to sell at the end of the season to cover ourselves but we had to sell in any case because we plummeted down the league and didn’t even get any European football in one of the weakest Premier Leagues I can remember. It showed very little foresight for Ross Wilson to sit on his hands when the team was visibly on the ropes.

We then come to the end of the season where we have plummeted, put together some Bruce level performances and lost another derby which allowed our dear rivals to experience Europe for the first time in a lifetime. The performances were so poor and we looked totally bereft of ideas. Eddie Howe looked a shell of the man who’d once had us putting it up anyone we came up against.

The decision was there to be made, all logic pointed to a departure of a club legend but as Eddie Howe didn’t quit, Ross Wilson didn’t make the decision to let him go. There’s always the loyalty argument but at that stage it was just ignoring the evidence your eyes presented to you to keep him.

This eventually backfired as by mid pre-season Eddie took the decision out of his hands and left for some well-earned rest and relaxation. This put us further on the back foot as a lot of managers had already moved at the end of the previous season and we’d already started our season’s preparations expecting Eddie Howe to be our manager.

The next managerial move was to bring in Matthias Jaissle, who talked one hell of a game, got to give him and the club credit as the way he was presented looked amazing and had most of us very excited for the potential but then the football started. The ‘vertical football’ promised turned out to be an Allardyce like hoofball without the defensive solidity and if they’d played Stelios as their CF rather than Davies.

As a toon fan Ive had plenty of opportunity to make judgement on God awful managers and all I can see with Jaissle is another one.

Could Wilson have been duped like the rest of us? Of course he could of, but even if he was his actions with 50m+ in the bank to go and sign a left winger who thinks they are a forward when we needed a proper physical CF, a 10, pacy ball playing CBs and an inverted RW was just negligent. Don’t get me wrong, Matias Fernandez-Pardo could turn out great, but it was such a bad use of resources.

In a similar note the signing of Ewen Jaouen is looking like excess which wasn’t needed, again he could be great but spending eight figures on a back-up goalkeeper is just wasteful at best. Signing a bunch of youngsters for a manager who won’t give them minutes in general is foolish.

Overall, regardless of the many flaws Matthias Jaissle has shown, Ross Wilson hasn’t built a squad that’s fit for purpose for the system that Wilson hired the new Head Coach for.

Looking at what we did on outgoings we can also see issues with the way Wilson worked, our pet media liked to say we are trying to use the Brighton model, ignoring that the Brighton model is to bring in younger players who have time to settle in before selling your bigger names. This year we sold all three of Bruno, Gordon, and Tonali before bringing in replacements, putting us straight on the back foot.

We have different opinions on the value we got for those three players (personally I think we sold too early) but having a replacement ready for none of them just shows Ross Wilson hasn’t prepared properly.

Looking at other decisions made over the summer, giving Harvey Barnes an extension rather than cashing in seems similar to previous decisions not to cash in on the likes of Miggy/Wilson after they’d had hot streaks. Barnes puts up great goals and assists stats, and you’ll get the argument ‘where would we be without his goals,’ but I disagree and think a better all-round player will benefit the team more eventually.

The Palace game is the prime example of what Barnes is, great finish for his goal but the number of attacks of ours that broke down because of his unwillingness/inability to beat a man, poor passing and poor decisions was in double figures. I think he’s an effective sub but the time to cash in was this summer gone.

The worst decisions though were to come and that was the decisions not to take the cash for both Murphy and Willock at the end of the window, the decision just tells everyone in the squad that they are the standard.

Murphy’s hot spell is long in the past, he can put in the occasional good cross (maybe one in three or four) but his all-round games makes Barnes look like the complete winger, he’s often terrified in possession and will put teammates under pressure or just play it to nobody so he doesn’t have it. You can also add his age, so to turn down the claimed £15m transfer fee is ridiculous. You may say ‘but he’s a good presence’ turning down £15m (as well as keeping Premier League wages) for someone who smiles and claps is a bit much. As for NUFC needing options on the right – Elanga, Pardo, Osula, Barnes and Wissa have all played on the right at some point and Joelinton and Ramsey have played on the left.

Joe Willock was an afterthought for Eddie Howe, but to his credit this season he’s popped up with some key goals and his chaotic style seems to suit our headless gameplan a little bit at least, though to turn down whatever transfer fee could have been banked in the summer is a failure in long-term squad building.

Overall, we may not quite be a sinking ship just yet due to riding our luck so far, but we can’t continue to go on like this. To fire Matthias Jaissle without also firing Ross Wilson would be like getting rid of the monkey without the organ grinder, so we need to remove Wilson from his position too, to try and get back on the right track.

I’m sure some will say you need to give directors of football time, but sometimes when something is wrong you just need to bite the bullet and move on, rather than persisting with the mistake.