number37

Being comfortable with double digits is probably what got him into bother in the first place.

It's funny how Kevin de Bruyne, Mo Salah and Romelu Lukaku weren't deemed good enough for Chelsea as youngsters and that's absolutely fine, apparently, but Newcastle letting Ivan Toney and Adam Armstrong go are the worst decisions in football. Don't often hear Thomas Tuchel have a whinge about that.

I was just about to post that! Bad science was another of his classics.

It's less for them to not be able to read, I suppose.

I hope he does alright for Kobe, got no beef with him, it just didn't work out for him here.

9. I'll look out for the results, mainly for fantasy football purposes (especially if I have opposition players) but it's not the same club any more, not even close. No other club sabotages itself the way this one does. It's really sad after spending most of my life emotionally and financially invested in Newcastle United to be in this position but if the club doesn't care then why should I?

I know the answer, of course I do, but seriously, where is the money? Like, we're technically a Premier League club but acting like we don't have a pot to piss in. I'm not expecting the second coming of Manchester City but surely, in 2021, signing players in double digit millions isn't the most outrageous thing to expect (delusional Geordies). These are basic, fundamental running costs of a modern club in the richest football league in the world - not title winning ambition, not squad overhauls, just doing the essentials. Surely even treading water must cost a couple of quid. Is the club sitting on a huge cash reserve? Clever accountancy? Even if Mike Ashley openly stated he's paying himself a million pounds a week you'd have to half admire his honesty and begrudgingly accept that's where the money is. But no. It's just a stubborn refusal. It's negligence, it's not being thrifty, it's not Daniel Levy levels of brinkmanship. The club isn't hemorrhaging money, it's not doing a Leeds (in the classic sense, chance would be a fine thing), it hasn't taken out a loan with the Bank of chuffing England nor has it built a 100,000 faded seat stadium in the middle of some retail park broadly speaking within the NE postcode. It's absolute madness. It's so ironic that the Premier league must hate us not because we're going to spend our way to every title from now until domesday but because we're deliberately stinking out their league by not even trying. In loads of other sports you'd be chucked out or disqualified for deliberately not trying or not showing effort. But aye, fit and proper person.

I think it's quite prevalent in Germany because the theory is the club is more important than a player so that's why the club’s name takes a more prominent position with the player's beneath the number. Or, you know, they could just stick a badge on the front to identify the club. Although I suppose that would then drive us deep into the murky world of stitched vs ironed vs sublimated badges. In those early pioneering days of the MLS they had the name of the team on the front of the shirts. Structured Germans versus crazy Americans, well there's only one way to solve this...(hmm, maybe not).

Could just wait until the book he was researching is published.

Seems the most Newcastle United thing to have a new deal with a travel company in the midst of a third wave of a global pandemic. Must have some cracking deals to the Lake District. It's up there with Arsenal's "Visit Rwanda (just not anytime soon)" and Cardiff City's "Visit Malaysia (not now, obviously)".

It was such an incredible atmosphere, that moment seemed to unite us all. Definitely one of the loudest noises I'd experienced at the ground but then I spent the next ten minutes shitting it because I was just certain he was going to score.

Roberto Mancini has been a manager for the best part of 20 years, working in a variety of countries, environments and with a wide range of players, winning a load of trophies along the way. Gareth Southgate, other than a few years as Middlesbrough manager, has been in the England 'bubble' for maybe half a dozen years or so in a number of roles. Setting aside ability for a moment, Mancini has considerably more experience than Southgate and can draw upon countless previous experiences and scenarios to help react to the ebbs and flows of a game, going down to an early goal in a final, for example. The debate and points made throughout this topic has been fantastic and really in depth, there's not a great deal I disagree with. I think you can say that man for man, both sides were fairly well matched last night, hence a penalty shoot out after extra time. So how do you separate such teams? Or who separates them? The manager. In my opinion. When all else is equal, the manager has the ultimate influence, for good or for bad. We've seen it here, Rafa got an extra 10% or 20% out of a squad that Bruce simply can't. Did Southgate make ineffective decisions about substitutions? Yeah, probably. That doesn't make him a bad manager, just an inexperienced one when up against Roberto Mancini. If the managers were reversed then it's England winning the tournament. If the situation happened in some other reality, Sir Alex Ferguson manages Scotland differently after however many years at Man Utd compared with having a few years at Aberdeen. Anyone in any walk of life does things differently after years of experience (not necessarily better, just different!). The match was won and lost, ultimately, in my view, because Mancini is a better, more experienced manager than Southgate. I can live with that every day of the week. That's not to say it's not massively shit and I'm pleased we lost because that's not true, I'd have loved to have won! So many things have been said about Southgate in this topic and like I say, I agree with a lot. He's clearly not an idiot, he's an intelligent, dignified man and has given us so much to be happy and proud about. It's not a crime to make mistakes but it is to not learn from them. He'll be analysing everything that happened throughout the tournament and I do believe (hope) he learns from what happened and builds upon his experience to ultimately make the England football team an even greater success. If he chooses not to learn and adapt then he's a stubborn fool but I don't think he is. He's still a relatively young manager both in terms of age and teams managed, he just came up short against Roberto Mancini's Italy who are on their best run in nearly a hundred years. Whether it's with England or elsewhere but Gareth Southgate in 10-15 years time will be a much better manager because I do believe he has the intelligence to learn and evolve (certainly the anti-PFM), it's just doesn't help when we want glory now! It's frustrating, massively frustrating because this genuinely was a fantastic opportunity to win but there's no shame in what we experienced and we go again. We can be proud.

I had that feeling when Keane went off injured in the '99 Cup final, was certain it was a good omen for us. Hopefully this turns out better!

Is that Christolph Waltz on the Italian coaching team? Also, just like to get my first "shut up, Jenas, man!" of the evening, I reckon there's more to follow.

Possibly not the most controversial post in this topic but I'm not loving the kits, especially if Italy are wearing their change shorts (navy blue) and so are England (white). A simple switcheroo could have avoided this heartache.

Punched the bloke behind her for being inappropriate.

Yeah, always a pet hate of mine. Unless that's just his nickname for his sister? I'm not sure of his family situation but I do hope the baby is well and healthy regardless of who gave birth.

Now it's a chuffing laser pen. It was Uri Geller in '96.

Eurrrgh, ITV man. England have just reached their first final since 1966 but they're winding me up so much, why do they have to ruin everything? Yet it's Channel Four they're fucking about with.

Forgot about that! ITV are so shit they made me forget about Jenas.

What we can all agree on is there is no way we're watching the final on ITV.

I don't think there'd be many players in extra time in a home semi final of a major international tournament going the whole "Robbie Fowler" in that situation, saying he wasn't touched. It's up to the referee to give it, which he did, or it's up to VAR to advise against, which it didn't. Nobody punched the ball into the goal.

Fuck it. It's far from honourable but I'm still bitter about Sol Campbell's disallowed header against Argentina in '98. Vikings had a shit ending so swings and roundabouts.

Terrific insight from ITV, there, this game isn't going to finish 1-0.

Of course Rio Ferdinand's got no fucking socks on. Such a dick.