Gottlob

Need him to make it so we can finally update the club songbook.

An unmitigated shambles, and I know that people will rightly say that it's not the fault of Howe or the players. But for me in the big list of things it puts the Carabao Cup behind our First Division trophy in 1993, with Howe behind Keegan and Isak probably behind Andy Cole given the latter's fine run-in and his hat-trick against Leicester.

To soak in the atmosphere, to acquaint or reacquaint oneself with a city or town, then to lurk in an alleyway with nothing but a grim smile and a switchblade, assuming a matchgoer’s ticket and aspects of their identity after dragging them into said alleyway and slicing them from ear to ear.

Paulo Wanchope and Paul Dickov?

Also the penalty should be one action rather than one touch, like in tennis where you're only penalised for hitting the ball twice if you take two swings at it.

Feels like football is at a low ebb at the moment, which has been especially true in Spain with Barcelona in a period of transition while mired in financial crisis. It's a shame that it has allowed Ancelotti, who previously had a dire record domestically, and the likes of Vinicius and Mbappe to fill their oversized boots.

Every great team needs the right mixture of ballers and scrotes.

More like Sven Sittingonhisbotman

He's a diminutive talent, but I've heard there's nothing diminutive about the size of his heart.

I've been to hundreds upon hundreds of matches at St James' Park and I can remember how things seemed to move so quickly in the nineties, from an open stadium with the club shop in a portacabin to 52,000 seats and what for a time felt like one of the best stadiums in the land. But times change and now I have a child of my own, and I'd like to be able to take her to a game at some point in the not too distant future without her turning to me, with tears in her eyes, and saying 'Daddy, why have you brought me to such a shithole?'.

Hey look everybody! I just walked into the door again!

There are two desirable outcomes in my opinion: Dubravka comes in, plays well and we win the match, the obvious choice; or Vlachodimos plays and proves implausibly bad, tripping over his own feet and throwing the ball into his own net several times over. He can be this generation's Fumaca or 'Yohan Kebab', a cause to look back and laugh, the type of thing that over the long haul can really serve to bring a fanbase together. And after all, what's more important than that?

Harvey Barnes? Might as well be Hilary Benn for all the good that did us!

I was around at the time and have absolutely no idea what 'Oldham 96' means. Maybe it's because I'm forgetful or maybe it's cause, you know, I actually have a life and haven't addled my brain with endless minutiae drawn from old football matches!

I agree with Yorkie and AyeDubbleYoo. Gordon is a gobshite who presents as an intellect, but thankfully the likes of Kid Icarus will be around to cut him down to size.

Got to say that my favourite thing about deadline day and maybe the whole transfer window was reading our signings being angrily described as a couple of 'bum boys' only here to placate Howe and Tindall.

Over the past two summers we've signed Tonali, Barnes, Livramento, Hall, Kelly, Osula and you can add Vlachodimos if you'd like for the first team squad. We've spent around £170-190 million on those players, and of the lot only Tonali has seemed like a certainty for the first eleven. So I'm not sure I buy the sincerity or the rationale behind the argument that we're only looking for the best of the best, ready-made players who can immediately enhance the first team. It just sounds like hot air in the place of serious squad building.

An injury to Pope or Schar and we are now severely limited for half of the season. I personally don't think our defence looks great as it stands, and while it's on Howe to improve our ball retention and turn things around away from home, if we do start to control matches more and force other teams to sit back, I reckon we'll struggle more than we'd like to break teams down with attention once again turning to our lack of quality wingers. The plus side obviously includes the return of Tonali, a really talented player who has the capacity to galvanise us out on the pitch, and I think Kelly and Osula were smart pickups. We do have a strong squad with everyone fit. But with Howe expressing his disappointment with our transfer business several times this summer and talking about players feeling unsettled, the end of the transfer window has provided nobody with a lift and it only increases the pressure on our current squad and coaching staff to perform this season.

I think what a lot of people forget is that stuff like this takes time. To be successful you've got to appoint the right people, buy the right tools and only then can you start to think about luring him to the embassy.

I agree, that's why I'm so pleased that we signed the injury-prone backup something or other Lloyd Kelly for £150,000 a week.

He's 21 years old and has just moved to a new team. Descriptions like 'competent', 'short of top level', 'decent', 'solid', 'average', etc. would probably be generous for some of the recent performances by Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento, and they'd also be more than apt for the likes of Dan Burn, Emil Krafth and our new signing Lloyd Kelly. I think Anderson would have been a useful member of the squad. He's added a bit of grit to his game, passes the ball nicely and has better close ball control than most of our midfielders, which is something we lack especially in the final third, plus he'd have been another option down the left if we're looking to free up Barnes and Gordon. I think it's a shame we had to sell him.

Pope needed his hands to save that one!

Isn't Madueke just an old and injury-prone Minteh?

I've never heard of anybody needing to 'access' a club crest. This isn't the Narnia chronicles and touching a badge sends nobody into a tailspin by which they end up inside the wonderful world of Oz.

He looks like a cross between Richard Pryor, one of the members of 3T and Hank Worden who played the senile waiter in the original Twin Peaks series.