Leeds United 4-1 Newcastle: New metrical dimensions

Newcastle United's new manager Matthias Jaissle was enjoying his new working life, I think. Relaxing dinners out in Tynemouth — when this workaholic has had a moment — have let him mingle with Geordies who have quickly taken him to their hearts. An unbeaten start to the season was helping with that, helping him find the light around predecessor Eddie Howe's shadow.

Last week he was looking forward to his first visit to Leeds, but seemed curiously under-informed. "I've heard many things," about Elland Road, he said. "We need to be aware of it like we were at the Den," for last week's Carabao Cup win over Millwall. "It was also a crazy atmosphere and it will be the same at Leeds."

The same? 14,700 people at the Den — several thousand under capacity — for a middling midweek League Cup tie, versus 36,693 — almost a sellout — almost all of them feeling like they're breathing down your neck from every corner of every stand, breath warmed by floodlights on a Monday night that Beeston made feel like a Mad Friday?

Leeds scored and Jaissle's jacket came off. Leeds scored again and his sleeves went up. Leeds scored again and from the corner of my eye I think he was applauding, impressed by Dominic Calvert-Lewin chopping inside a defender and smacking the ball in. Leeds scored again and he must have been thinking about the easy life back in Saudi Arabia, successfully managing Al-Ahli. 

In amongst it all, James Trafford and Tarik Muharemović combined to stop Harvey Barnes from scoring the Magpies' only first half chance, and perhaps that's when Jaissle's memories of Al-Ahli felt fondest. He had his life's good fortune there to be managing one Ezgjan Alioski, who must have told him that The Den can't compare to Elland Road, as well as telling him all the wonderful things Marcelo Bielsa did as his coach, as well as telling him all the things the dolphins tell him, when they talk to him, which they do because he understands them. 

And Alioski must have told him, too, the only time his face turned to frown, about Harvey Barnes. How Barnes once walked out on a transfer to Leeds, choosing West Brom instead, and keeps coming back to score. It seemed to be the one thing Jaissle knew to do, making Barnes the first name on his teamsheet. But Barnes didn't score, and Jaissle was out of ideas.

Well, what do you expect from a coach who took over Salzburg's drinks factory works team from Jesse Marsch, except a tight-white shirt, rolled up sleeves and a total paucity of ideas? It occurred to me in the first half that, when Leeds win the toss and play as preferred towards the South Stand, the dugout placement at the Peacock ground puts both coaches in their attacking halves. So, as the Geordies' defence collapsed to a three goal deficit by half-time, Jaissle could only find anything to say to his forwards, making a sawing motion across the pitch with his arm as if he was cutting up the cake for Farke to enjoy with his coffee later. His defenders, who needed some of whatever that was, were lost to him, distant in the din.

I am getting a lot of Marsch at Leeds vibes from Jaissle at Newcastle. Taking over from a popular manager, recruiting to a more attacking style of play, starting well amid nice shirts and friendly press coverage ('a workaholic who speaks well' etc), then realising that 'vertical football' doesn't cut it in the Premier League. 

Jaissle differs from Marsch's preferred 'John Beck but it's German' route one gerrit forward stuff by favouring diagonals, rather than verticals, and his one big round of applause for his forwards was for £50m 21-year-old speedy-heeled wunderkind debutant Matias Fernandez-Pardo. He ran, off the ball, very fast, diagonally. The move broke down almost as soon as the Barcodes were in the attacking half but the boss was ecstatic anyway.

Where Jaissle is differing from Marsch is that the metrics are already against him. "Newcastle significantly overperformed underlying metrics in their first three games. Against Leeds, they rapidly regressed to their mean," reported Chris Waugh of The Athletic, sombrely, glancing up from their calculator. "It feels shit, for sure," said Jaissle, post-match. Well, I'm not sure. It felt pretty shitting great from where I was watching, but then I was always terrible at maths.

Leeds United are very good at football now and there is a point to bringing Marsch into all this, because in Salzburg he and Jaissle both had Noah Okafor in their team — and Brenden Aaronson — and while a lot of fans question Farke's fondness for wee Brendo, part of what we've been seeing at Elland Road these three-and-a-bit years is a great unwinding from our brief entanglement with kick-and-rush RB football, even as we've ended up with their taurine-soaked logo puking red on our shirts. Newcastle United, for all their millions, are on their way down that rabbithole now. Expect Sam Allardyce back in charge on Tyneside before the season's out.

Leeds under Farke have been playing phenomenally well for a year and only seem to be getting better. Perhaps it was a little easy against Newcastle, who were passive and bad, but Leeds subdued them first thanks to Ethan Ampadu as usual and then through one of Ao Tanaka's best games. As he pressed and stole and passed and controlled, the team's nominal right-back, Jayden Bogle, ran into spaces in the middle and made it impossible for Newcastle to concentrate on where Dominic Calvert-Lewin was. 

Worrying about Bogle on one side meant it was harder to deal with Okafor on the other, and his — and Gabriel Gudmundsson's — sliding runs from the wing were carving into the box. Behind all this was new security, thanks to Muharemović, who at one point overtook Fernandez-Pardo, eased the ball off his toe on the turn, then played an immediate pass to get Leeds flowing forward again. Next to him was Nico Elvedi, quietly keeping everything aligned.

It doesn't always work and it isn't always great, but there are so many dimensions to what Leeds are attempting to do that it makes it more likely than not that things will go well. While Newcastle did the best they could with Jaissle's playbook, get to the byline and cut back, get to the byline and cut back, get to the byline and cut back, Leeds scored four different kinds of goals and could have scored more with different kinds of chances.

There was the long-range, kind of, opener, after half-an-hour: it began when Muharemović won one of Newcastle's long balls in the air and Ampadu let Tanaka have the ball in space. He turned, sent it wide for Okafor to tease the right-back, then got it back and had a shot — ping, ping, and in, an own goal it turns out but Tanaka's morally. 

For the second, Bogle intercepted a pass, bounced the ball to Justin off Anton Stach, and got into the box to, it turned out, take a fine headed goal off Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Both rose at the front post, both headed into the bottom corner, only one celebrated at the time, fuming for laughs later when the goal was Bogled.

Three was brilliant centre-forward play, the chop 'n' smack from Calvert-Lewin mentioned already. Then four was a long-throw, headed out, kicked in, Okafor with an early half-volley from the edge of the box to the corner of the goal. He, after a week of arguing about his international career, celebrated with every move he knew, a refreshing alternative to the hands-over-ears and shushing stuff that must have tempted him. I like a winger who is ready to dance through his problems.

Five? Well, it could have been any: Ampadu's shot hit Calvert-Lewin, Bogle and Calvert-Lewin had six-yard efforts very well saved, Bogle half-Ayling'd a bouncing ball off the goalie's fingers, Stach seized on a mistake and missed by inches, Dan James put a cross just in front of Lukas Nmecha's toe, then put his own shot too high. There were dangerous crosses from Gudmundsson among all this, who has a new trick of putting the ball over low. 

Then Newcastle scored with a minute left when Leeds had, finally, allowed themselves to jog a bit, which gave Daniel Farke something to hold an on-pitch coaching session about at full-time. That's not a bad thing, though: there was an old Bielsa adage about working the players harder when they're winning, because they're more in the mood for it.

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Maybe that's something Gjanni Alioski used to tell Matthias Jaissle about, when they were out in Jeddah together. Maybe that was something, like Jesse Marsch dealing with Mateusz Klich's advice, Jaissle got tired of hearing. He's entitled to do it his way, one way, the way Newcastle look determined to follow, if they can, if it'll work. 

At Leeds, we've seen Alioski and we saw Klich and we're seeing Okafor and even Aaronson, even old him, and we've seen them doing much more, different and new and evolving. Leeds could have scored ten, but after the rapid reverse at Chelsea last week, four did for us just fine. ⭑彡

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