Ketsbaia’s Kick-Off Klub
Newcastle head to West London still searching for their first away win of the season. After a routine Champions League victory in midweek, the question now is whether Howe’s men can finally carry that composure onto Premier League turf.
Dan Burn’s physics-defying header and a routine Joelinton finish sealed Newcastle United’s third straight Champions League win, but behind the scoreline lurked another sluggish, disjointed display that raised as many questions as it answered.
After back-to-back strong finishes, seventh in 2023/24 and fifth in 2024/25, Newcastle United’s opening to the 2025/26 season has felt strangely muted. Ten games in, they sit 13th. The table is tight and the sample is small, but the story so far is clear enough: even as the defence has quietly improved year on year, the attack has regressed sharply.
For a club that has redefined the speed and scale of its rebuild, Newcastle United’s left back spot has been a slow burn and a running debate. Two very different interpretations of the role, Dan Burn’s defensive certainty and Lewis Hall’s natural, forward-leaning profile, have coexisted across the last three seasons, shaping the team’s balance, the centre-back partnerships inside them, and the way Eddie Howe’s side looks when it tries to tilt the pitch to the left.
Newcastle United have the opportunity to move on from Sunday’s horror show against West Ham under the lights in the Champions League. No matter how frustrating or disappointing our league form has been this season, these are special nights to savour and in Athletic Bilbao, Newcastle United meet an opponent not only similarly struggling in La Liga but are beset by injuries to key players.
Football has always been a game of trends, and this season, the Premier League has taken a decisive turn toward the set piece. After years of obsessing over build-up play and positional rotations, the 2025–26 campaign has seen a dramatic rise in goals from corners, long throws, and rehearsed free-kick routines.
In this article, we aim to offer a tactical blueprint and visual breakdown of what makes Yoane Wissa an excellent addition to the Newcastle United squad, and why Toon fans should be excited to see him line out in the black and white stripes in the not-too-distant future.
From intensity to invisibility. This was a gutless, shapeless mess of a performance, and for the first time in four years, many are starting to wonder if the Howe era is beginning to unravel.
Newcastle United’s recent fine form will be put to the test in a key away fixture in the Premier League that may be trickier than it first appears.
Howe’s men will be hoping to bring the fluid, free-flowing, controlled football that has characterised recent appearances in the Champions League and Carabao Cup to the league and ignite what has felt like a rather sluggish start to the league.
After a turbulent autumn in east London, West Ham arrive at matchweek 10 in a fragile state: Graham Potter is out, Nuno Espírito Santo is in, results haven’t improved, and the points column remains worryingly thin. For Newcastle, this is a chance to impose control away from home against a side still searching for its bearings under a new coach.