The Premier League is a brutal place for reputations. One moment you are the £55m answer to a striker crisis, the next you are watching Jacob Murphy...
The Premier League is a brutal place for reputations. One moment you are the £55m answer to a striker crisis, the next you are watching Jacob Murphy start ahead of you in a crucial April fixture. Yoane Wissa's arrival on Tyneside was supposed to be the final piece of Eddie Howe's attacking jigsaw. Instead, it has become the most expensive piece of a puzzle that now lies scattered across the floor of St James' Park.Let us be clear: the blame does not rest solely on the Democratic Republic of the Congo forward's shoulders. Newcastle's recruitment strategy this season has been nothing short of baffling. They spent a combined £175m on Wissa, Nick Woltemade, and Anthony Elanga, yet by the time they trudged off at Selhurst Park in April, Howe opted for the industry of Murphy and the raw energy of Will Osula over a trio of players who cost more than some entire midtable squads. That is not a tactical tweak; that is a white flag. Wissa, who scored 19 goals in the Premier League last season for Brentford, has managed a solitary strike in 13 appearances. Only four starts. The chemistry he once shared with Bryan Mbeumo has evaporated, replaced by the lonely reality of a system that does not know how to use him.Howe's side have finished 12th, a staggering seven place drop from the previous campaign. The Europa League dreams are dead. The top four talk is a distant memory. When you invest that heavily in attack and see your manager turn to his second choice backups, you know the rot runs deeper than individual form. Wissa does not fit the high energy, counter pressing model that made Newcastle dangerous. He is a penalty box predator who needs service, but when the confidence drains from a team, the service dries up. It is a vicious, predictable cycle.Now with Anthony Gordon expected to leave in the coming months, the club faces a reckoning. Can the board truly trust the same recruitment team that sanctioned these astronomical fees for players who cannot get a game Newcastle's season has not been a failure of effort; it has been a failure of judgment. And Wissa, through no fault of his own, has become the glaring symbol of that misplaced faith. The question for the summer is not whether he can rediscover his form, but whether anyone at the club will still be in a job long enough to give him the chance.For the fans, the memory of that £55m outlay will sting for years. It is a cautionary tale of what happens when you buy the reputation instead of the system.
