Are Newcastle United actually any good? Why their game against Leeds will reveal the truth

It’s amazing how swiftly the narrative can change in football. Go back to the end of July, when Eddie Howe unexpectedly resigned from his role as Newcastle United manager amid an alarming exodus of the club’s senior players, and the mood on Tyneside was distinctly jittery. Just a few weeks into Matthias Jaissle’s reign, however, the tone has shifted at speed.

Five points from three potentially difficult Premier League games and a couple of wins in the EFL Cup mean that Jaissle is unbeaten in his first five, while Newcastle enter the weekend in seventh place and within a point of the top four. League position means little at this putative stage of the season, but there’s a growing sense that everything might just work out despite the appointment of an unheralded manager and the loss of key personnel.

Despite the positive results, however, there have been some statistical alarm bells ringing. So are Newcastle actually improving under Jaissle, and is another dart at the European places a plausible expectation for the year? Monday evening’s match against Leeds might tell us more.

The stats which suggest that Newcastle have a lot of work to do

Fretting over the stats at the very beginning of the season isn’t usually a worthwhile activity given the limited sample size available, but there are a few concerning trends hidden beneath the actual results that Newcastle have achieved.

Six goals from three Premier League games represents an impressive start, but their 3.38 expected goals suggests that they’ve been getting a little lucky. Only four teams have managed a lower total xG so far, only four have had fewer shots at goal, and only three have had fewer attempts on target.

In each of Newcastle’s three league games to date, their opposition have finished with a higher xG total and many more shots – Newcastle have had 32 efforts on goal, while their opponents have combined for 61. Newcastle are getting creditable results, but in terms of the general flow of the game they have been second best every time they have come up against a top-flight team.

There are plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations available. Liverpool and Bournemouth are both strong sides who were considerably better than the Magpies last season and even if Tottenham Hotspur seem to be stuck in a permanent cycle of self-destruction, they still have talent. Jaissle, meanwhile is a new head coach finding his feet, and his squad has become much greener over the summer.

It may well be that performances improve as a new-look side gels and as the manager works out how to get the best out of them. For now, all that actually matters is that there are points on the board – but ignoring warning signs buried in the numbers seldom ends well.

Very few teams manage to keep going against the statistical grain for any length of time, although one example of a side who managed it just last season would be Sunderland, who defied the data to qualify for the Europa League. As unpalatable as the idea might be, Newcastle’s fiercest rivals provide a template for a team to overachieve by dint of sheer bloody-mindedness, a trait that they demonstrated in coming back from 2-0 down to draw with Bournemouth last weekend.

It’s a comparison that will only matter if it turns out that Newcastle actually need to outperform the statistical baseline for a lengthy stretch of the season, of course. It may be that they play better as time passes and as the opposition gets a little gentler – which is why Monday evening’s match against Leeds could provide an interesting yardstick for where the Magpies really are right now.

Why Leeds represent the perfect test for Matthias Jaissle’s young team

In Liverpool and Bournemouth, Newcastle have already faced two teams who earned European qualification last season. In Spurs, they played against a gifted mess that defy usage as a sensible side-by-side comparison. In Leeds, at last, they go up against a team that they probably should beat if they have genuine pretensions to a continental placing.

Leeds, like Newcastle, have five points from three games despite putting up rather uninspiring numbers, at least in attack. Their combined xG of 3.85 is the next worst after Newcastle’s, for instance, and in scoring half as many goals as the Magpies they seem to have quite fairly represented their modest creativity and limited threat in the final third.

In short, this is a team which Newcastle’s defence – featuring an in-form Lewis Hall fresh from signing a five-year contract extension – should be able to keep at bay if they’re going to be good enough to deal with teams in the top half of the Premier League table. If Dominic Calvert-Lewin and his cohorts emerge from the game as clear winners in their duel with Jaissle’s back line, it won’t be a brilliant sign.

Simultaneously, Leeds’ legitimately stingy defence, improved this summer by the canny additions of Tarik Muharemović and Nico Elvedi, offer a solid test for an attack led by Yoane Wissa, who is starting to rediscover his form in a system which suits his style of play slightly better than Howe’s less compact set-up did.

The key question is likely to be whether Newcastle’s young midfield, shorn of Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimarães, can create enough chances for their team-mates further forward while keeping Leeds’ own playmakers from linking up with Calvert-Lewin. Are Lewis Miley and Sean Steur good enough, this early in their careers, to drive a team towards the upper reaches of the table? If they can’t get the ball forward while dealing with Anton Stach at the same time, then perhaps not.

Nothing will be proven on Monday night, of course, and both Jaissle and his deeply inexperienced side deserve the benefit of patience as they work through their growing pains – but as long as they keep winning, they will also keep building expectation. Whether they can cope with the burden of those burgeoning expectations, fuelled by the achievements of the Howe era, remains an open question.

For now, diving into the data suggests that they may not remain unbeaten for too much longer – but Leeds offer a par to beat, a fair test of where they truly are at this moment in the season. If Newcastle don’t win, or at least play in a manner which deserves victory, then it might suggest that the road ahead of Jaissle and his band of neophytes is longer than early results have led some supporters to believe.