If you judge based on so far, there isnt much different. They could all go either way in the future but for now I think there isnt much in it. Take Hirst for example, you may cling on to a sudden flurry of goals in the second half of the season, but as it stands, he often struggles to make the bench, he has never played well, he hasnt scored and he missed a key penalty. Any rational person would struggle to say that SO FAR he has been anything other than a poor signing. On par with Mola in that we wouldnt have been any worse off had we not bothered with either, as it stands. The other 4 are perhaps more likely to have a range of opinions. Brittain has been ok when he has played, not one of the best right backs in the league though! And you have to factor injury proneness when judging a signing, we have signed players far better than Brittain that have failed to meet expectations down to bad luck with injuries. I said all summer that we were crying out for experience in midfield, I feel like that has proven itself to be true, Morton is not an upgrade on what we already have. Hyam has been the best of the 6, he isnt amazing and not an upgrade on the 2 that left nor on the main we still have, but happy we have him. And then that leaves Szmodics who was always IMO going to struggle to justify the fee paid, unremarkable and overpriced. Another thing I would suggest is that there is very little scope to get a profit on any of them, making all of this shite about playing possession football to add value even more bizarre.

Its an absolutely nonsensical argument that our best results have come under English managers when such a large majority have been English. It is not down to the nationality that any manager succeeded or failed, it is down to the individual.

If only the likes of Klopp, Mourinho and Wenger had realised that their lack of outstanding playing careers was so important prior to being such good managers.

Perhaps, but without such a rule in place, would we not be cutting off our nose to spite our face if we chose to choose to follow that rule even if and when superior options were foreign? That may well be the case to be fair, but even then I suppose his stock could be high enough to get a better club based job.

Hopefully Tomasson learns after a second derby day embarassment in a way that he didnt in the month that followed the first. Kaminski Carter Hyam Wharton Pickering Buckley A Wharton Markanday Dack Brereton Gallagher Subs: Pears, Ayala, Hedges, Travis, Dolan, Morton, Mola Play on the counter, no passing it out from the back.

Assuming that Newcastle continue to grow with money and potentially reach European places, would Howe want to be England manager? Big if.

So not massively different, thus the OTT comment was probably unwarranted.

Which of those signings have been considerably judged unfairly by me, regarding the summer business?

I cant get my head around justifying an only English manager stance by pointing to Eriksson and Capello. As individuals, maybe they did underachieve, but that would surely only remove a temptation to for some reason re-appoint those as individuals. They aren't proof that foreign managers would as a general rule not do as well, we have had English managers since who have done even worse. I also dont get why Southgate would automatically get 4 years. Even if the decision was made to keep him, surely you judge tournament by tournament. If we got knocked out in the first knockout round (almost impossible to go out of a 24 team group stage) of the Euros like in 2016, surely at that point a change would be made.

You said last week that you would sack him no matter what! His management at he World Cup was so naive, they left so many gaps and he also managed to do the Croatian mangers team talk for him.

The "over the top reaction" phrase seems to be your favourite at the moment. An over the top reaction would be (I agree with you here) to suggest sacking the manager, we are third. That being said, I do have big doubts that we will be anywhere near there at the end of the season. But my comments about the January window are nothing to do with the last 2 games really, I have never thought that it was anything other than pretty average. Hyam is the pick and he is nothing special, just a steady centre back. Brittain is made of glass, ok when he plays though. Szmodics I am not the biggest fan of, don't think he provides much and I can see why Peterborough fans weren't fussed that he left. Morton has ability but he is not as good as Adam Wharton and can often go missing, and the 2 loanees are not up to it. I don't think we have the players to play out from the back, no point comparing to England players who are playing at a miles higher level, it is something that the top teams do consistently, not flit in and out. When we do try it even when we don't lose it in stupid areas, because of a lack of technical ability it is very slow, side to side, and it doesn't move the other team apart. You can't just palm it off to the players making poor decisions, they are being instructed to pass it out from the back and that brings massive risk.

The irony of calling someone out for "baseless speculation" considering that you believe everything, including what people overhear on trains! We will never know if there are financial penalties, it is just a theory as it is common with teams loaning kids from the Premier League, and Morton has pretty much played every game regardless of performance dips.

We don't have the players. None of our centre backs are particularly technical and Travis cannot play on the half turn. Very worrying that after these weeks you repeatedly said would be important to work on tactics etc, that we play with such a confused and counter productive style yesterday. The transfer window is not looking a particularly great one either.

Nixon is a chancer, Mowbray brought Buckley through so an easy link. That being said, Tomasson clearly doesn't fancy Buckley so maybe he will want a move in January. He won't drop his captain nor a player I presume we will face financial penalties should we not play him.

How anyone could sit and watch that shite for 90 minutes and then chose the day after to watch it all again is incredible!

A tight game, fine margins, the usual cliches unfortunately. But again we just came up short when facing one of the big guns after seeing off inferior nations, as has been the way.

Absolutely disgraceful performance and result against a bang average side who struggle to score and were missing a big chunk of their team. Obviously Tomasson can't be considered for the sack while we are in 3rd, but I think a big chunk of our fan base are understandably skeptical towards him. In most games he does some weird tactical thing that causes us to be imbalanced, he cannot turn games round by making changes tactically and he is stubbornly sticking to an overall tactic that doesn't suit us, that 2nd goal yesterday was as bad as you could wish to see. I am very unconvinced that the "journey" will lead us forward. Yesterday, the Hedges drifting back into almost a wing back role and the balance of the front 3 was bizarre, we was caught in between 2 systems and we couldn't keep the ball forward. I would also look back at the transfer window and say it was below average. Hyam is ok but nothing special, Brittain is ok and constantly injured, Morton is often invisible, Szmodics is usually poor, Mola again yesterday was miles out of his depth and we all know how bad Hirst is. Performance wise, Dack was the only one to come out with any credit. Szmodics was invisible as was Brereton although you don't take your main goalscorer off at 2-1 down. The defenders were all poor and Travis and Morton were both hopeless.

Absolutely no chance of Spurs going for Gareth Southgate.

Croatia are fantastic in tournaments, you would imagine that it is the last tournament for a few including Perisic and definitely (and sadly) Modric but they have IMO the best midfield in the tournament. Good to see the underdog win and always nice to see Neymar in tears. His goal was special but he is as unlikeable a player as you could wish to see.

Nope. They have been open previously with beer pumps on, it helps with queues. For some reason they haven't been used. Last match, I went down 5 minutes before half time, got served as the second half was kicking off and they only had Fosters left which I would never choose in a million years.

And the English teams!

If they get the chance, they will try again.

Would you potentially not keep him assuming he doesn't want to sign a new deal?

The pundits tend to fawn over all of the big names and/or the big countries, whether that is Messi, Ronaldo, Modric, Mbappe, Neymar/Brazil etc, and of course very much included, England. I think the general punditry levels have been pretty shocking to be honest, I get appealing to the mainstream but everything is focused around basically one player for every team, in between regular interviews with Southgate regardless of the match. You would like to expect a bit more in depth analysis on other members of the team, especially those that aren't based in the Premier League.

Saka has provided a goal threat both for Arsenal and in this tournament plus I would suggest is more hard working looking back to helping Walker etc with Mbappe.