Away Toon

Newcastle's owners continue to admire Jose Mourinho at Roma, with the 60-year-old's contract set to expire next summer, although the Serie A side are keen to retain him as their manager. (Gazzetta dello Sport - in Italian) The football would no doubt be ugly, but the old miserable bastard is good at winning things. Borussia Dortmund have joined Newcastle in the race for the signature of Serhou Guirassy, Stuttgart's 27-year-old Guinea forward. Guirassy has scored 16 Bundesliga goals already this season. (Sport Bild - in German)

Isak is not a CF, never was, never will be. The fact that Howe swapped him with Gordon maybe means he's finally realised it. He should never start up front by himself. he's an auxiliary striker. he needs a partner.

The Milan game matters, not this one or the Everton game.

He's not a very good midfield player, he's physical but that's it. He's also slow, but not as slow as Bruno and Miley.

Anyhow we are going to get a tonking here. In a month the season might be over.

Bruno is by far the most technical player we have.

Course they can play a bit, but technically gifted, not really.

Not looking very promising this. We have no press and without it we are technically very limited in lots of positions. You could argue that Bruno and Trippier are the only really technical players we have.

Barnes would have buried that, he definitely wouldn't have passed.

Got to score there.

It's a pity we have gone backwards so far this season although a lot of that is down to the injuries we have. For once the league looks pretty wide open with any one of half a dozen teams capable of winning the league.

We have nothing to gain from this and everything to lose, which is generally the case when we play the mackems.

We were always likely to go backwards this season, it's just how far and whether or not the owners will feel it's acceptable. There are mitigating circumstances for sure but it was always highly predictable. That Liverpool have improved is not surprising but that Villa since Emery joined have out performed us is.

Juventus are willing to let England winger Samuel Iling-Junior leave in January with Tottenham and Newcastle among the clubs interested in the 20-year-old. (Tuttomercatoweb - in Italian)

Now that's a goal

Newcastle United are monitoring Dominic Calvert-Lewin's situation at Everton as the England striker, 26, is on their list of potential targets for next summer. (TeamTalk) Love a bit of monitoring. A good player, if he could stay fit which seemingly he can't he could be a great player.

Surely even the worst players that went to Saudi are being paid more than anyone at NUFC, never mind someone like Neves who is probably on double our highest paid player.

Is he playing well for Brazil? Does he play the same deep lying role as he does for us? His team don't seem very good at the moment.

Has he actually apologized?

A fit and motivated Phillips is an elite 6, at his best better than Rice when they played together for England. I don't think that either Willock of Joe are particularly good in midfield so not sure why you would want them in there.

Why did we not buy Paqueta?

Liverpool's bench is interesting today, we are not the only club with a lot of injuries.

I know that we are incredibly stretched and the squad in thread bare but even when everyone is fit there are questions about what the best position is for lots of our players. Hall doesn't look like a great LB prospect at this point. Is this his preferred position or just an assumption that this is the position we are buying him to grow into? Also seemingly without anyone really knowing their best position is Willock, Gordon and Joelinton. I'm sure Bruno would be a better 8 than a 6 but until Miley is ready for the DM position or we buy someone like Phillips he'll have to play there. That presumes that Miley is a 6? It's all very well having players who are flexible, but IMO Gordon will never be a CF, Big Joe never a top class midfielder, Willock I've no idea at all what he's meant to be. Apart from being invisible most of the time. It's quite possible than Gordon, Willock, Joelinton and Barnes are all at their best in the same position which is very unlikely to be a good thing. We also need to evolve our playing style if we are going to continue having top 4 aspirations every season. This rigid 433, high press, physicality is our identity, is all very well against the poorer teams but doesn't work against the best ones and if it means your players end up dropping like flies there has to be a plan B. We need IMO to evolve into a possession based team but that requires much better technical players than the ones we have. It's much less knackering having the ball than chasing around looking for it. Anyhow onwards and upwards.

Though Willock was the worst player on the pitch, but then again until the 80th minute I didn't think he was.

I mean we could rotate more.