Gottlob

Where's Marta?

Good if next summer we can sign one of Paz or Sancet to provide threat from the midfield, Anderson to muck in a bit farther back, and Vinicius Jr to get up ahead of Woltemade with his pace and goalscoring. Then we'd also need a backup or rotation option at left-back.

They're often very, very naughty the people who go to the match.

Seem to recall vile chodes like Kaka dismissing his crossing ability, only ever focusing on Murphy's flaws while suggesting that we'd be much better off with Elanga or any other right winger. Such people prate without understanding aught of which they're saying. But will they own up to the fact or come in here on bended knee seeking forgiveness?

Two absolutely fantastic finishes and hopefully a real confidence booster. I don't think I'd ever start him down the right hand side but it's nice that he can come on and use his strengths down both flanks. Probably one of the best players we've had at the rudiments of finishing, like striking early and shot placement.

Love the idea of him being able to sit in and at times interchange with Bruno down the right. With those two and Tonali we could find a lot more fluidity and composure in the midfield. Howe will no doubt pick his moments but I think he's really talented.

It's a great throw by Pope but nothing really without the Benfica player diving in and Barnes providing a fantastic finish.

Would anyone be okay with Eddie going to Liverpool if it meant Isak coming back the other way?

Spoke out against his signing at the time and am feeling increasingly vindicated. Feel like after a tough few years I can finally raise my head in my public. In seriousness it's always fine margins with Gordon because he can be tenacious and put himself in the right positions but there's not always a lot of quality. As I said elsewhere all of our wide players managed to put up good numbers in terms of goals and assists playing alongside Isak. His threat and the space he provided for other players obviously helped, and it feels like Gordon had a knack for getting on the end of chances even when he wasn't the intended target. Now he's not playing on the shoulder as much and the expectations are greater and his level seems to have dropped.

I thought that Andy Cole improved his technique as well as his all-round game at Manchester United and that Michael Owen was very tidy after joining us from Real Madrid. In both cases that came to the fore after they'd lost a yard of pace, so short of an egregious tackle maybe we could have Elanga training with a backpack or weighted vest?

Lots of problems in my opinion. I don't think the midfield works. For the quality we have in that position we are too open at the back and shockingly poor in possession. I'd have ditched the flat midfield a couple of years ago and I still think we'd be better served by a couple of specialists, one to sit and break things up and another to offer more creativity when we think we're going to see more of the ball. Woltemade looks fantastic but unless we really wanted to sign him and simply didn't bother to pick up the phone, there's presumably a reason why we made substantial bids for four or five strikers ahead of him. It changes our attack. Isak didn't hold up the ball well and often didn't compete for it effectively but he was a real threat, could dribble and create chances out of nothing and provided space for the other players. Our wingers without being top talents were producing top numbers in terms of goals and assists alongside him. Now we need players to link with Woltemade and players to run in behind but there's nobody who seems to have the right mix of creativity and ball control or pace, anticipation and clinical finishing. Wissa will hopefully change the equation, but if we're going to play both regularly it presumably changes our shape and if we need him to be successful then we probably should have signed two of him.

Our midfield is not well balanced and not well coached in my opinion. We have some brilliant players but there's no shape to the midfield and we aren't as good as we should be in possession. With Tonali and Bruno we should be able to exert more control over games. I'd like someone to sit behind them and someone to create ahead of them depending on the circumstances.

I'd have liked a left back in the summer and was a touch surprised that we let Targett go on loan, but it was well down the list of priorities. We've been unfortunate with injuries in that position, though I also think that Howe has probably been itching to get both Botman and Burn into the side even though we should know at this point that Burn is poor down the left. Is there an old pro we could bring in to teach us how to pass the ball through the midfield? I know we play a direct style and it has been very successful, but we are awful with the ball given the quality of players in our squad.

Howe has been a great manager for us, he sets the team up well, has forged a wonderful spirit and he's a credit to the club. But while I can understand the sense that he wants more control over the transfer process, I don't think we can say at this stage that it's necessarily a good idea. My memory is that Nickson and then Ashworth received plenty of credit at the time for some of our past successes, from Bruno and Botman to the pivot towards Isak when Wilson got injured, while Ashworth in particular was heralded then blamed for the signing of Tonali and Hall was seen as his bastard until he turned out to be decent, at which point people looked at his blonde hair and noticed a resemblance to Howe. Following Ashworth's departure we've had two difficult summers, with the past one seemingly salvaged by the late move for Woltemade after we missed out on at least four other strikers. Thiaw has all the tools to be a resounding success and I like Elanga and Wissa who still have everything to prove, while I'm not convinced that Ramsey was a good signing. Whatever there's not a track record of success with Howe leading the transfer process in the absence of a proper sporting director, so hopefully Wilson is coming in with some of his own ideas.

That guy is bald and middle-aged and has learnt not to give a fuck while taking one of the few fashion choices still available to him. If he looked like prime Jon Hamm but still chose to dress like that maybe then we could start to question his mentality.

I know the idea is always that Trippier changed the culture of the team but didn't he barely play over that first half-season? And while his signing felt like a major coup didn't he know Howe and want to move back to the north of England? You could argue his signing was more of a curio or product of circumstance rather than a statement of intent, though I have no doubt that he was a major leader for us on and off the pitch as well as a wellspring of creativity especially over his first full season. For me Bruno single-handedly gave us a midfield and has been the most crucial signing of Howe's tenure. We'd struggled there for so long, and I think without his passing and press resistance you simply don't make a top side from the likes of Longstaff, Joelinton and Willock. He knitted us together and he still feels like the heart of the team even though his form has been a bit patchy for a while now. Then I'd say Isak even though he played more of a peripheral role during the season we finished fourth, which felt like a bit of a one-off in so far as we were performing at the peak of our collective powers and were carried by a rush of momentum. Since then he's been the centrepiece of our attack and we're obviously still finding out whether we can be as clinical and dangerous without him. After those two I think you can take your pick between Trippier, Burn and Tonali too if you're looking at ability and potential. I'd probably go for Burn as a consistent part of the first eleven and for his cup final goal.

I always thought that Shearer gave as good as he got, and that if the odd referee did pander to him as England's star striker it was just as common for an official to come up to St James' Park and give him nothing as if to show that they wouldn't be influenced or overawed by the crowd. You needed to be combative as a striker back then and plenty of players had an edge. Ian Wright who is well liked today had a particular nasty streak of a type which only emerged from Shearer on the odd occasion. For me the lack of elbows, stamps and all-out brawls following reckless tackles is to the detriment of the game, especially today in front of a divided populace which yearns for violence. There's a lot to bemoan about today's version of football but at the very least the players could pretend they aren't friends, orchestrate a few fist fights and ideally give us the pleasure of watching on as the odd overhyped prospect has their career devastated by injuries.

Not a fan of three at the back. It can leave us looking light in the centre of midfield and sometimes almost nonexistent in the attack. I guess with this particular setup you might look for Hall to move into the midfield and Willock to stretch wide when we're attacking but there's not a huge amount of pace in the side, we already struggle with keeping the ball and it doesn't feel like there are patterns we can fall back on. I do wish we'd spent our money differently and pushed for a second midfielder this summer.

Just looking at the statistics Isak had played 126 games of quality top-flight football and scored 46 league goals by the time he signed for us while Bruno had played 117 top-flight games and had already been called up to the Brazil team. That's ignoring Isak's breakthrough in Sweden and I think with him in particular there had been the sense for a while that he was a hot prospect, one of a small number of young strikers around who had the potential to become top class. By contrast Woltemade has played 70 games of top-flight football and scored 14 goals. Last year was his breakout season. I think we've ended up with a really exciting and promising front pair who offer us more cover and variety than we've had over the past few seasons. I'm happy that we signed Woltemade. But I don't think we signed a bargain this summer while replacing Isak will be a big ask even for him and Wissa. In an international break I don't think it's surprising that people are getting worked up over our record signing who we haven't yet seen play and who doesn't have a long track record.

It's a slow Sunday so I'm going to suggest that Michael Owen has proffered some decent opinions recently and while he's an odd character and it's difficult to tell how knowing he is about it he seems to have a pretty funny deadpan style.

That's one thing you garner when you read profiles on Hopkinson: the sheer amount of contacts he has managed to accrue by being a bang-up guy over a long, hardworking career. His rolodex must be the size of a baseball mitt. I don't quite understand his remit, but my hope is that he manages to rectify the food situation at the ground, at least by the addition of a pastrami sandwich and something smothered in hot honey.

Seems likely to me that all of the players weren't desperate to see the back of him, that a big chill didn't descend over the whole training complex every time he was present over the past month, that far from being a sociopath he'd struck up a good relationship with plenty of the squad who probably enjoyed playing alongside him, and that far from there being no way back a decision to freeze him out and keep him on the sidelines would have been more detrimental by making the other players question their own prospects especially when it comes time for contract negotiations or when they themselves are ready to seek a move. Of course it's much easier to be understanding or magnanimous when you share the same career and are also earning tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds each week.

He studied the humanities as a bairn before taking a master's in negotiation at Harvard Law School. He knows how to fill the big seat in the big chair around the big boys' table but for all that what he cares about most is people. He's got his eyes on markets in the United States and the Far East and I have no doubt that he'll have commercial partnerships coming out the wazoo.

Sammy Ameobi and Paul Dummett are currently without a club.

If we were serious about a Champions League challenge then perhaps anticipating the Isak money we should have kept Longstaff while adding James Tavernier, Adam Armstrong and one from Tim Krul, Freddie Woodman or Bobby Clarkey.