Newcastle United are expecting to have Matthias Jaissle leading the team on their pre-season trip to La Manga, Spain on Saturday, with the club hoping to announce the German as their new head coach in the next 24 hours.The Athletic reported on Thursday that Eddie Howe was set to leave his position as Newcastle head coach after nearly five years at the club, with Jaissle poised to replace him.Howe had informed the Newcastle hierarchy of his desire to step away shortly after pre-season began but offered to remain in his role while the club sought to find a new head coach.Howe led Newcastle to their first trophy in 70 years, winning the Carabao Cup in 2025 and also oversaw qualification for the Champions League twice.Despite a challenging campaign in which Newcastle finished 12th in the table, 10 points above the relegation zone, the 48-year-old had initially appeared set to stay at the club following talks with the club’s ownership and leadership. All parties acknowledged that the season was not good enough and could not be repeated but agreed for Howe to remain in his role.However, Howe had a change of heart this summer, leading to his departure, which has not yet been publicly confirmed but has been agreed. The situation was amicable, with Newcastle prepared for his exit.Newcastle won the Carabao Cup under Howe, their first major trophy in 70 years (Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)Jaissle took over as head coach of Saudi Pro League side Al Ahli in 2023, winning the AFC Champions League Elite — the top level of continental competition in Asia — in 2025 and 2026.The 38-year-old spent the entirety of his seven-year senior playing career with German side Hoffenheim, retiring in 2014 at the age of 26. He took his first coaching position with Austrian side Liefering, the feeder club of Red Bull Salzburg, in January 2021, before joining the latter as head coach in July of that year.He won the Austrian Bundesliga in each of his two campaigns with Salzburg, before being relieved of his duties two days before the start of the 2023-24 campaign, which Salzburg said was at his request so he could join Al Ahli.Newcastle have pre-season friendlies scheduled against Valencia, Everton, Bayer Leverkusen and Strasbourg before they get their Premier League season underway when they host Liverpool on August 23.Who is Matthias Jaissle?The below is an extract from an interview with Jaissle in JanuaryJaissle never intended to coach. He was a centre-back as a player and, by 18, having been signed from Stuttgart by their then manager Ralf Rangnick, was playing for Hoffenheim, becoming part of their journey up the leagues, and to Bundesliga promotion in 2008.He was a Germany Under-21 international, too, until injury intervened. Jaissle suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear in a 2009 game against Hannover and was never the same. He retired at 26 but, thanks to Rangnick, by then RB Leipzig’s head of sport, was invited onto a trainee programme within the club’s youth department.Jaissle worked as an assistant to current Stuttgart head coach Sebastian Hoeness, who was in charge of Leipzig’s under-16 side. In 2017, he became Alexander Zorniger’s assistant at Brondby, the Danish Super Liga club. And, by 2019, he had returned to the Red Bull network to become head coach of Salzburg’s under-18s.Two years later came a series of fortunate breaks. First, he replaced Bo Svensson as coach of FC Liefering, Salzburg’s feeder club, when the Dane took over at Mainz. Then, when Jesse Marsch left Salzburg for their sister club in Leipzig, Jaissle was in position to succeed him.He became head coach of the serial Austrian champions at just 33.Jaissle wants his players to have agency on the ball, but for that expression to exist within a framework and to be supported by intense defensive work.“I want stress on the opponent as soon as possible,” he says. “And when we win the ball, I want to go as quickly as possible towards the opponent’s goal. I’m very vertical in that approach.”The Rangnick influence is clear. But as naturally as that comes to the players within the Red Bull system, in the world outside it is not the same.