Newcastle United have a lot of issues that need addressed at the moment in regards to our performances.
From incredibly poor and unorganised defending, to a general lack of positional awareness, there’s plenty for Matthias Jaissle to work on.
However, our most glaring issue comes up top, and the Aston Villa game made it more apparent than ever.
Let’s start with the most obvious sign that the club has an issue in forward areas – we ended the game with Dan Burn at striker.
A comical decision that not even the most rogue Football Manager player would dare consider, this is an abhorrently dreadful and comical sign that we have truly failed to address our issues up top over the summer, and makes the decision to loan out Nick Woltemade ever the more jarring in the process.
The only semi-logical reason to dare playing Dan Burn up front comes from another of the Newcastle United forward line’s most glaring issues – a lack of any and all aerial presence.
Newcastle United are yet to score a header in the Premier League this season and it’s not hard to see why. The 5 ft 9 Yoan Wissa was never known for his heading, Matias Fernandez-Pardo has certainly not displayed any eagerness to win any aerial duels in the box so far. Crossing has became an obsolete waste for us in forward areas.
This ties into another problem in regards to the positioning of our forwards, particularly Fernandez-Pardo. Despite his apparent insistence on being used as a striker, he consistently drifts out and, even when he isn’t the man on the ball in wide areas, never seems to be in a favourable position for any cross that comes in.
I’m not even entirely sure who our striker was at the beginning of the Aston Villa game, which is a major indictment in and of itself.
Although William Osula made little impact when he came on, it’s very clear he is the best option available to us when fit and available. His purple patch at the end of last season showed more than Yoan Wissa has ever displayed with any smidge of consistency in black and white, Osula’s physical presence and desire to get into goal scoring areas is an absolute necessity given our current lack of it.
I sympathise with Matthias Jaissle and the fractured, damaged squad that he inherited, and I recognise he was absent for half of the transfer window. But both he and Ross Wilson, everyone involved at the club, should have seen this coming.
The fact our back up centre half was used as a striker when chasing the game at home is a painful display of how disorganised Newcastle United continues to be in regards to our recruitment.