A tactical analysis of Newcastle United over the first few months of the 2025/26 season.

In possession

First phase:

When building out from the back we’ve mainly seen a 4-3-3 shape or a 4-2-4. The centre back’s will usually sit either side of the keeper with Pope being used to create a +1 vs an opposition’s press. However, Pope’s role isn’t very complicated, and we don’t have any reliance on him trying to break lines. So he’s rarely put in uncomfortable situations, which is good as we know Nick Pope’s ability on the ball isn’t great.

Furthermore, we’ve seen Bruno and Tonali rotating regularly as Bruno is our most press resistant midfielder, so having him get on the ball in deep areas gives us a new option for ball progression when building out from the back. There has been one new element to our first phase of play and it’s Nick Woltemade. We’ve seen, on occasion, him and Joelinton rotating, with Nick looking to receive the ball of the centre backs to offer us a new type of progression, a rotation to keep an eye on.

Our behaviour in the first phase has been mostly direct. We back our selves physically and our ability in duels, we believe our best chance of progressing the ball into the second phase is through going long. Whether that’s direct from Pope on goal kicks or from our defenders, most of these balls played towards our left hand side where Joelinton is, as he’s one of our most aerially dominant players. So far this season we rank 18^th for touches in our penalty box and 20^th for touches in the defensive third, showing how little time we spend trying to build out of the back.

Second phase:

Our shape in the second phase has a few more variations than the first phase, we again see the common 4-3-3 but we also have seen 4-2-4 with Bruno and Tonali at the centre, 3-2-5 with either full back creating a back three in possession and the other either inverting next to one of the midfielders or joining the last line.

So far this season we haven’t spent much time having settled possession in the middle third of the pitch. This phase of play is often skipped in favour of a transitional attack or settled play in the final third, and has always been quite common for an Eddie Howe side.

However, we do still find ourselves having settled possession in the middle third on a few occasions in every game and when we do, our main progression comes from our centre back’s who either look to switch the ball over to wingers who may be 1v1 vs their full back or looking for players between the lines. Our play between the lines seems to be improving with Joelinton or whoever is playing left centre midfield. Given freedom to drift across the pitch, Gordon seems to be taking up more central positions, and a new dynamic with Woltemade is giving our centre back’s a very good option between the lines. We rank 14^th for touches in the middle third in the Premier League this season.

Final third:

Our shape in the final third is pretty similar to our shapes in the second phase, however, I would say there is a lot more emphasis on getting five or more players in the last line, with our shapes varying from a 4-1-5, 3-2-5, 3-1-6, 2-2-6 or more commonly a 2-3-5.

The 2-3-5 shape is brilliant, and I think it gives us a really solid rest defence. The difference to our rest defence to most sides is we don’t have set players in it, especially that midfield three. It can vary from being all three of our midfielders being there, two midfielders and a full back, one midfielder and two full backs or no midfielders with full backs and wingers taking responsibility instead. There is so many rotations and freedom to move within our final third that it’s impossible to point a single player to a position in our shape. As Eddie said last season, we like to have “freedom within our structure”, which is the best way to describe our final third play.

Reading this, it’s probably weird for me to be the most positive about our shape in the final third than the first or second phase, as we’ve had clear problems in the final third. But, in my opinion, that doesn’t come from our shape and the ideas implemented by Eddie, as our potential in that final third is up there with the very best in the country and once it clicks we are going to be back to our exciting selves.

So, let’s get into what I think has went so wrong with this phase of play. Newcastle rank 16^th for goals scored this season and 10^th for non-penalty expected goals, which isn’t pretty reading and shows we haven’t created enough high-quality chances or finished well enough.

Simply put, I think a big reason for this is a new attack. Final third play is heavily dictated on the individual and how players combine with each other, the smoothness of their rotations and the on-pitch understanding. This takes time for players to get good at, especially with two new forwards in our front line. Woltemade being the obvious one, with him being such a unicorn player with movements that our players may never encountered before, so it takes time to read these movements.

I also think our wide triangle’s haven’t been as fluid or effective then in the past. I always point to our 2022/23 right hand side of Trippier, Longstaff and Almiron and our 2024/25 left hand side of Hall, Joelinton and Gordon. The fluidity of these triangles and the understanding amongst the three used to give the opposition nightmares, but new dynamics have been implemented. Joelinton has been given more freedom to drift across, Bruno has moved deeper and Trippier is not pushing into the last line as often. Plus, with the injury/fitness problems for Hall, Gordon up front and a new face in Elanga, these triangles need time to get back to their very best, but the potential is absolutely there with the players we have at our disposal.

Ultimately, we just need to be patient, we are underperforming our expected goals already this season and are unlucky not to have a few more points on the board because of this, although our underlying numbers haven’t been good enough. Bonce our attack starts to gel, I think these numbers will improve. There is an element of our play being over direct and against low blocks it’s frustrating to have Joelinton playing so high in these game’s. Bruno needs to be played further forward as he’s a lot more creative, especially with Ramsey out.

Out of possession:

Press:

As always, our pressing set up is aggressive, we have mostly pressed man to man, which has given us the most success.

Our pressing has been really good so far. Howe has effectively adapted to the opposition when needed, but our set up usually has our left winger join our striker in the front line, meaning our left back will have to step up on the opponent’s full back. This is obviously a very aggressive set up, where the left-back has almost a 50/50 role, meaning when the ball is on the opposite side, he can drop into the defensive line allowing us to have a +1 at back.

Low block/Mid block:

Our shape out of possession this season has either been a zonal 4-5-1 or a 5-4-1. I would say we are more effective in our low block as there is less space between the lines, meaning its more difficult for the opposition to play through us.

Our middle and defensive lines are very narrow, trying to limit central passing lanes with the aim of forcing the opposition wide and then locking them off on that side, especially in our low block. In our mid block we are more aggressive, and we look to react to pressing triggers, especially early on in games. The triggers are often backward passes, loose touches, the ball going wide or even a player having the ball on their weaker foot.

There’s not much to say on our out of possession approach. We are compact, narrow and really difficult to break down, as shown by having the most clean sheets this season. We are a difficult side to beat and, despite late winners by Liverpool and Arsenal, we’ve shown that and I think this defensive solidity will bode well for us in knockout games and tough away games.

We rank second in the Premier League for expected goals against with 4.7, only behind Arsenal on 4.3. These are seriously impressive numbers, especially when you consider we’ve faced Arsenal and Liverpool already this season.

Summary

My summary of our tactical approach this season is mostly positive. We’ve been excellent defensively, our press has been brilliant, we’ve been superb in our duels, so solid and compact in our block. Off the ball Howe has us set up almost perfectly.

The attack has also shown real promise, especially the last two games. The performance against Forest felt like a big stepping stone for us. It’s still not perfect and I did question our game plan against Leeds and Bournemouth. The aim seems to be sit off and be compact, conserve energy for 65/70 minutes then go for it in the last 15/30 minutes, but we just don’t seem to create enough in them periods for it to be a viable game plan, especially in games where you’d like to see us try and win. An example of this was zero shots in that second half vs Bournemouth, which was really poor.

I’ve liked some of our set pieces as well this season, the introduction of the long throw and the new kick off routine has been fun. We haven’t had much goal contributions from set pieces this season, but I personally think the delivery on a lot of our set pieces has been fairly poor. I’d like to see Trippier be on more corners as he is our best taker, in my opinion.

Thank you for reading, enjoy the rest of your week!