The Magpies were thrashed 4-1 by Coventry City on Monday evening
Newcastle United's Nico Gonzalez
Newcastle United's Nico Gonzalez(Image: 2026 CameraSport)
In the wake of Newcastle United's bruising 4-1 defeat to Coventry City, the search for an explanation as to how the Magpies were so handily beaten by a newly promoted side has seen a whole host of theories thrown up.
Newcastle did not take their chances (they had 19 shots on goal), they conceded far too many shots on goal (not for the first time this season) and a young squad (Newcastle signed eight players aged 24 and under in the summer) will experience turbulence throughout this season are among the commonly held reasons as to why Matthias Jaissle's side succumbed to a second successive 4-1 defeat away from home.
All of that feels unsustainable if Newcastle cannot get a grip on it quickly and one suggestion over how they can do that is to ascertain more control in midfield.
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Often this season the midfield pivot has felt exposed and there has also felt like there has been far too big a gap between the front four and the midfield base in Jaissle's 4-2-3-1 formation.
A pair of players from Nico Gonzalez, Lewis Miley, Sean Steur and Jacob Ramsey have formed that base but in the last two games, Jaissle has opted to play Joe Willock in the midfield, moving away from two deeper-lying midfielders to play with one instead, while the other has the license to get forward and join the attacks.
In principle, that should make Newcastle more dangerous going forward and should mean there is a player bridging the chasm that had formed between their deepest midfielder and the front four across the majority of Newcastle's games this term.
But on Monday, when Jaissle paired Willock and Gonzalez together, the Spaniard looked exposed in the middle with Coventry constantly overloading the former Manchester City man in the middle of the park.
And the stats have backed up the eye test with Opta's average positions chart below showing that Newcastle looked more like a team playing 4-1-5, as opposed to playing 4-2-3-1, with Willock effectively playing alongside Jacob Murphy, Yoane Wissa and Harvey Barnes in forward areas, rather than alongside Gonzalez in midfield.
Newcastle United's average positions vs Coventry City
Newcastle United's average positions vs Coventry City(Image: Opta)