Matthias Jaissle’s status as Newcastle United manager looks very fragile after yet another defeat in which they look tactically lost.
Appointing a man with no Premier League experience raised eyebrows and after some encouraging early results, Newcastle’s blood-and-thunder tactic has been found out and the club have won just one of their last five games.
With Jaissle seemingly out of his depth, there is growing speculation his head could be the first on the Premier League chopping block but the question the Newcastle board have to answer is who do they replace him with?
There are not a lot of options out there either. Eddie Howe is the best prospect for any Premier League club not called Newcastle and barring a dramatic comeback, they will have to look elsewhere.
Here are four candidates they could consider.
Other than Pep Guardiola, Didier Deschamps is the most decorated manager currently out of work.
He left the France role in the summer after 14 years in the job, during which he reached three major wins and won the World Cup.
Deschamps is not without club experience either. He won Ligue 1 with Marseille in the 2009/10 season and was the manager who took Juventus back up from Serie B following the Calciopoli scandal.
He also reached the final of the Champions League with Monaco in 2004 and so certainly has the CV to back it up.
Now the 58-year-old is reported to be looking for a way back into club management with Juventus said to be interested in appointing him.
He may take some convincing though. Going from a World Cup winner to battling in the lower echelons of the Premier League is quite the hard sell but Newcastle may be able to convince him to take on their project.
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Nagelsmann’s reputation has taken a bit of a hit following unsuccessful stints at Bayern and Germany and so he may have to rebuild it away from the elite club for now. Enter Newcastle.
The 39-year-old would certainly fit into the sexy manager category and he is one of the more tactically flexible modern coaches. He primarily used a 4-2-3-1 at Bayern and is another proponent of the high-pressing style.
It didn’t work at Germany but that was also to do with a lacklustre generation of talent. It could then work at Newcastle.
McKenna is the obvious name that will get to a lot of jobs with him having the unusual distinction of walking away from his last club rather than getting the sack.
His work at Ipswich has made him one of the highest-rated young managers in England but there is still some doubt about his ability to coach in the Premier League, which he has yet to prove.
He’s a young manager with a lot of potential but Newcastle fans may believe they are past that point in their trajectory.
There is also the fact that McKenna left Ipswich to spend more time away from his family and Newcastle is an awfully long way from his home in Suffolk.
This is the sexy appointment Newcastle fans would love.
The former Arsenal and Chelsea man is the rising young star of the coaching world with his Como side qualifying for the Champions League last season.
But that success is also exactly why it may be hard to get him to Tyneside. Not only is he the manager, he is also a shareholder in the Serie A club and so may find it especially hard to move away at this time.
But Fabregas has been open about his desire to manage in the Premier League and so maybe Newcastle could tempt him.
His style is exactly as you’d expect from an ex-Barcelona and Arsenal man with his teams enjoying the majority of possession and focused on high pressing, the latter of which was an Eddie Howe staple.
He plays with a 4-2-3-1 which is what Newcastle use now and so there would not be too much adapting needing to be done. Crucially, he also knows the league having made 350 appearances in it which is 350 more than Jaissle made.