TRon

I purposely left him out because I have a pathological dislike for the smarmy twat. But beyond the preening self importance, he was quite tactically savvy.

Well they were called shit as well ultimately. I understand Southgate's tactics to a point, basically keep it tight and then rely on a bit of magic to win the game, it's tried and tested in cup competitions. I just think he showed no imagination and never looked capable of changing it up.

Yep. Those are the two best England managers I've seen in my time.

Yep. waste of time even talking about players like Williams. Every top club in the world will be in for him, and sadly we aren't there yet.

I think he has enough self belief to ignore that, don't think he's the type to duck a challenge because he might get criticism.

I always thought the best football I've ever seen England play was under SBR. Maybe it was just the players, two of our own, Gazza and Waddle gave us some real flair, and they weren't stifled by Bobby either.

Yep. I'm as big a fan of Poch as any, but his record since Spurs is patchy at best. I still think he's a top manager, but not even sure we've seen the best of Howe yet. I don't think anyone will ever be as good a public spokesman for us again.

Yeah I don't see him going for that reason above all, I'm just saying he does want the England job at some point, and there are valid reasons he could be tempted. But I also think the Newcastle job is probably his ideal club job other than geography, so I think he'll stay here.

I don't see him going, but there will be a temptation to take charge of the best England squad in ages, and also I guess he could spend more time with his family if he went back down south. So it's not out of the question.

Well it's not really far off the truth tbh.

You are right, I haven't watched much at all, basically only the 0-0 game against us where he looked a small and irksome pest. I said he looked ok, but not CL quality which is what I would want. Or at least potential CL quality, but then you don't see many CL clubs sniffing around, and I think it's because he's too small.

Never been convinced by Gnonto tbh, always seemed more of a little pest than much else. I think he's an ok player, just not really struck me as being CL quality which is what I think we should be going for. I suppose you could argue that he's still only 20 and he might have room to grow, but think it would mostly be muscle mass than much else.

I think getting ignored by England will work in our favour tbh, if he'd played and been outstanding then his agent would have been hawking him around in order to get a massive pay rise. I think he'll get a new contract here anyway but he's earned that.

I just saw Fat Sam on Sky saying we should never give the job to a foreign manager after failing with this experiment previously, so I'm assuming we probably will go for an English manager. I just don't think the FA would take the risk of appointing a non-English candidate at this point.

Potter seems like the obvious choice if Howe turns the job down. Which he wlll.

This. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

I don't think he'll take it, but you can see the lure of taking charge of this generation of England stars. There's probably never been a better time to take the job if he wants it, which we know he does at some point. I still think he'd miss the day to day of club football too much though, and Newcastle is too big a job to give up.

I think it was the lack of really exciting quality on show. There was some good individual players, but they didn't seem to light the tournament up like players of the past such as Zidane, Platini or Maradona (yes I know I'm going back a bit). Maybe it's just the boring way the game is played these days. Only Spain seemed to really go for it, there were too many teams happy to sit back and wait for a mistake, and England were the worst culprits.

Southgate was getting pelters leading up to the tournament, right through to the final when all the press suddenly decided he was the right man all along. I guess they'll probably flip again once the eulogies to "our brave lads" are over. I just think he's always been far too cautious and England are in danger of wasting another generation of talented footballers if he stays on. I thought he was a poor manager years ago and I haven't seen anything to change my mind.

Would think exactly the same about Gordon if he wasn't a Newcastle player. Then all those horrible qualities become assets.

Will be interesting to see if Villa do suffer from injuries this time round or we were just particularly unlucky. I don't think we really had a squad capable of coping with the extra workload either.

I think he's a cracking player, just not sure he's suited to playing a lone striker role which is what we would need as someone to rotate with Isak.

I always see Joelinton as more of an advanced/left midfielder rather than a holding one. If anything Bruno plays deeper, so is the Joelinton/Onana comparison like for like?

That's debatable.

I think people overlook this when they offer negative opinions on him. He looks a tidy footballer to me, I also think he could be a good foil for someone like Bruno.