HawK

Thank you - I appreciate the correction, every day is a learning day !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c15vk01ey01o Jacob Murphy: Does Newcastle winger deserve place in the England squad? - BBC Sport Usually you get a bit of 19vs1 voting and bias against the club on a vote, and mostly Newcastle fans are going to be clicking on a link for a Newcastle player, but when the title of article includes 'England Squad', you tend to get a lot more neutral clicks. The sentiment there is quite telling, people outside our club rate him as well.

Bruno & Tonali ... Lee & Speed Lee & Batty Cabaye & Tiote ... Parker & Emre With our previous pairings, I don't think either player could walk into a world XI, but were very effective for us at times (OK Parker & Emre is a bit of a joke submission). Tonali & Bruno could be first names in their position on a World XI team sheet. Who else is in the conversation ? Rodri ?

With Botman, Schar, Burn and Lascelles are seemingly available next year, I really would rather we didn't outlay so much on a position I think we have depth in and we instead invested heavily in a ball-playing keeper instead. Then again, I was wrong when we signed Gordon when we already had Maxi. I was also wrong when we signed Barnes, when we already had Gordon. I've been right about many things tactically - but come transfers I'm evidently clueless. So if he arrives, for whatever we pay, I'll be backing him and the club 100% this time around. If he doesn't, I'll just keep pining for Kelleher/Trafford

I come back this this, I'm still pinching myself. I might have been an FM nerd, but I've been buying Sandro Tonali on every game since he was 16. But in the real world, he was becoming to Milan what Maldini was, what Gerrard was to Liverpool or Raul to Real. How on earth did we get him here.

I think it was considered a hot take back in January when I made the latest All time PL NUFC XI thread but I had him in there with Bruno. They for me are the best two central midfielders we've had in my lifetime supporting this club. And I think Tonali's even better than Bruno now too.

Agreed, but I think Gordon could do with showing he can work as hard on the right as the left though. From my eye he's never looked like he's really put in a shift on that side and played with a bit of a hump, but I could be reading too much into it. Having the flexibility of moving between Barnes/Gordon/Murphy across both wings with the potential of Isak dropping off with Gordon up front could be an absolute nightmare for teams to manage in man-marking systems.

I think he's been markedly better since he can quarterback the team rather than solely remote-control Almiron in front of him, he's steadily got better the longer he's played behind Murphy. He doesn't need to run beyond Murphy, because Murphy can do all the attacking legwork himself. He can slot in and let an additional midfielder run in with Murphy instead, like Tonali or Bruno. Players at the back with the vision and the calmness of Tripps and Schar are worth their weight in gold when they're on form.

Beyond the number of assists, look at the chances created vs the assists converted, i.e. converted chances created. His record is phenomenal, better than anyone in that list. He is creating GREAT chances when he gets the opportunity, it's not a numbers game for him.

Aye it's the best thing for Gordon long-term imo, learnings to be had for him - restraint, patience, resilience etc. Feels like typing out my kids' school's values

"We must remain focused and level headed and take each game by game" "We have to go to Villa and give a level of performance that we've been giving in the past few weeks" "We have to be consistent and give the right performances to get us into the Champions League"

Tindall getting better at this media lark now, he's giving Eddie a run for his money with his deadpan level-headedness in this post match interview. Almost started to crack a smile at the mention of the cup final, otherwise very stoic.

I think our starting XI can match any team on our day. I think we need more Livramentos and Halls to come in instead of our Wilsons and Longstaffs - more £30-40m players, not necessarily the £50m+ starters for big teams. So that when we do get the inevitable injuries, we have the squad depth to cover and maintain the level. I think if we can get 3 decent players at about £25-30m each this summer, across RW/CM/ST we're good in that regard. One big hole in our team imo is our keeper. If the rumours about Kelleher are true, I'd hope we're all over that or at least Trafford.

Jacob coming across so, so well as always. Dedicates his crossing quality to Matt Ritchie

"When the juice is flowing, you just gotta hit it" - Jacob Murphy, 16/04/2025

Matheus who?

Still a priority signing but on current form no-one walks into our team ahead of him.

Nothing against the lads but the apparent gulf in quality/ability between the players that started the game for us and who's on the pitch now is massive. I include current-form Gordon in that too be honest. Don't think you'd put first touch at the top of any of Longstaff, Willock, Wilson or Gordon's best attributes.

'If we win our 2 games in hand'... 'Palace are going to be tricky'.. 'banana skin'... More like how much can we stat pad against 2 of the worst teams to turn up at SJP this season. I think with this team we might have arrived lads. Since that 4-1 win at PSG I think on our day, any XI we put out can take on anyone. Let alone our best XI.

That's what we needed to do, stop putting them on a plate, it's insulting for him. Make him shoot from outside the D with no support at all. He's a premium product, not some pampered princess.