McEwan

Under normal circumstances it's hard to see a young manager of a good PL team wanting to leave to manage England. But if Howe thinks he's likely to be sacked this season or in the summer, then it makes sense for him to get in front of it and take the England job now. Then he'd have a guaranteed job through the summer of 2026 and unless 2026 is a disaster, likely the summer of 2028 at which point he can see what's available. If he stays at Newcastle and does get sacked, it may be hard to find something comparable. But in any case I think the fee the PIF would want for Howe would be too high for the FA anyway.

Why does that have to be the case? Why can't they have a different list of pen-takers for each game depending on the matchup against the opposing keeper? Gordon might be a better penalty-taker against most keepers but in this case, Pickford probably has some advantage against him being his former club teammate and current country teammate.

If this link is true, NUFC still owes him around ~$2m all together for the rest of this season and next season. He'll never make anywhere near that much again, so there's not much incentive for him to take anything less. https://www.spotrac.com/epl/player/_/id/15450/isaac-hayden

Games like this are why I would have even kept Isaac Hayden in the squad rather than a 5th keeper.