Brace yourself for the Eddie Howe circus - Gareth Southgate has left his role as England manager

Gareth Southgate has officially ended his reign as England boss after narrowly missing out on lifting the European Championship Trophy.

It had been widely speculated that Euro 2024 would be Gareth Southgate's last tournament in charge of the England team.

However, as England booked their place in the final, reports suggested that The FA would ask Southgate to stay on regardless of the result.

After failing to defeat Spain on Sunday, Gareth Southgate has, as has been widely reported, stepped down from his role.

Whoever comes in next - please play attacking football

Our feelings on Southgate's brand of football and a huge portion of the calls he made were made pretty clear over the past month, so today's news gives us mixed emotions.

Glee that we never have to see that brand of "pragmatic" (negative) football again, but despair as until his successor is appointed, Eddie Howe is going to be in the media's crosshairs.

It's now going to be a daily grind of stories trying to convince us that Eddie Howe is wavering and looking to leave Newcastle United to take up the England role.

Eddie Howe will be linked right up until the appointment is made

Bookies have Howe high on the list of candidates to replace Southgate along with Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino who are the two names above Howe on the bookies' list, probably by virtue of them both being out of work.

After Howe there are names like Pep Guardiola (which would just be magnificent), England U21 boss Lee Carsley and former Liverpool whingebag Jurgen Klopp.

Things are going to get interesting over the next few days, and as we've seen with Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak, it won't matter if Eddie Howe comes out and outright says he's not taking the job, he will still be linked every day until the appointment is made.