Eddie Howe has admitted that Yoane Wissa’s untimely injury and the late sale of Alexander Isak left Newcastle United without the planning and balance they had intended for the new season, using it as an excuse
for the slow start to the campaign.
Wissa, who arrived from Brentford for £55million, suffered a knee injury while on international duty just days after completing his move and has yet to train with his new club.
Howe said the absence of a Premier League-ready forward has been “huge” for his squad, particularly with record signing Nick Woltemade still adapting to English football.
“If Yoane was available now, he’d be allowing us to work with Nick’s fitness in between games and sharing some of the load,” Howe said. “We need him back and need him back quickly. It was huge. You go into the new season with your squad settled and you have a plan, and then we didn’t even see Yoane. He’s come back injured, and that was a difficult one, having spent the money, and we knew Yoane was Premier League ready and knows the league inside and out.”
Howe acknowledged that Newcastle were already dealing with a disrupted summer following Isak’s record £130m move to Liverpool on deadline day. The late timing of that sale, Howe said, denied him the chance to properly integrate his new-look squad during pre-season.
“In an ideal world, you have a full pre-season to iron out any issues you have,” Howe said. “But the way the summer unfolded — and there is a whole host of reasons why that happened — this is the situation we’ve been placed in, and now it’s our job to try and make the best of that.”
The Newcastle head coach stressed that his squad remains strong but conceded that without Wissa and with Woltemade being overused early, his side has been left missing the “X Factor” in attack, aka an Alexander Isak.
