Newcastle sporting director Ross Wilson has revealed the club had been preparing for a potential managerial change for several months before Eddie Howe left this summer.
Howe’s departure brought an end to almost five years in charge at St James’ Park and was one of several significant changes at Newcastle, with Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimarães also leaving.
But while Howe’s exit may have caught many by surprise, Wilson says Newcastle had already been planning for the possibility of needing a replacement, allowing them to move quickly to appoint Matthias Jaissle.
“Eddie will be the first to tell you that I came here 10 or 11 months ago and, in the background, I’ve been planning for a managerial change for eight or nine of those months,” Wilson said.
“As much as it might have caught some people off guard, the reason we could move as quickly as we did [for Matthias Jaissle] was because we’d been prepared for that for a number of months.”
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Wilson insists the summer “never felt chaotic” internally despite the significant upheaval and outside noise surrounding the club.
Jaissle quickly emerged as Newcastle’s number one target, with Wilson explaining that the club used their own models to identify coaches capable of delivering the aggressive, high-intensity style of football they wanted.
“It was really, really clear that Matthias was somebody that, if he was transactable at a certain moment, would be really, really interesting to us,” he said.