Matthias Jaissle had promised to go all in on the Carabao Cup. By full time at Hill Dickinson Stadium on Thursday night, that pledge was in pieces.
Everton booked a quarter-final at home to Fleetwood Town through first-half goals from James Garner and Hayden Hackney, before Thierno Barry’s 69th-minute header settled the tie. Dan Burn, scorer of Newcastle’s opener in the 2025 Wembley final, pulled one back in the 89th minute. By then it was over.
In the press room the 38-year-old German did little to hide his frustration.
“It is the story of the season so far with a situation where it really counts, we are lacking in the clinical approach to solve the situations,” Jaissle told reporters.
He singled out the opening goal as one his players should have cleared in a low-risk area before Garner punished them. In Jaissle’s view his team should also have had a penalty around Hackney’s second, and that call frustrated him alongside the error that led to the first.
Osula limps off at halftime
Striker William Osula twisted his ankle taking a shot in the first half and was replaced at the break by Yoane Wissa. Jaissle said it was too early to put a time frame on the striker’s absence.
The injury compounded a night that was already going wrong, and extended a bruising away run. Newcastle have now shipped eleven goals in three straight road defeats, after 4-1 losses at Leeds United in September and at Coventry City on October 12.
The cup Howe lifted in March 2025
Context sharpened the sting. Howe had delivered Newcastle their first major trophy in 70 years by beating Liverpool 2-1 at Wembley in March 2025, with Burn and Alexander Isak the scorers. Jaissle, appointed on August 5, 2026 to succeed Howe, had made no secret in his pre-match press conference of wanting to mirror that run this season. Around 8,000 Newcastle fans had traveled to Merseyside on Thursday expecting as much.
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UEFA settlement caps January
The brief Jaissle inherited was already narrow. Newcastle’s three-year financial settlement with UEFA runs until 2028 and only permits the club to spend half of any extra income generated in the winter window. Any January arrival will have to be funded by departures first, with Nick Pope and Joe Willock the names most often linked with a move out.
Everton host Fleetwood Town, of League Two, in the quarter-final in December. Newcastle will not be there.
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