How six Newcastle players performed for their senior national teams over the international window: Lewis Hall, Yoane Wissa, Bazoumana Touré and Malick Thiaw carrying their club form with them, Lukáš Horníček and Matias Fernandez-Pardo finding it tougher. We also keep an eye on how the club’s young stars fared for their U21 sides, before turning to Monday’s trip to Coventry.

Lewis Hall: the corner, and what came before it

Lewis Hall’s corner dropped at the far post at Wembley, Harry Kane met it with his head, and England led 3-0 on the night their captain equalled Peter Shilton’s cap record.

It was the last act of a fortnight in which Hall had to earn his way back. He was left out of Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad in the summer, a decision that stunned Tyneside, and a muscle scare early in camp kept him on the bench for the 3-2 defeat to Spain. Then Nico O’Reilly’s injury opened a door in Prague, and Hall went through it.

What Tuchel got was what Newcastle have enjoyed since August: a left-back who defends honestly, drives forward without being asked and plays as though the ball belongs to him. He linked up with his former Newcastle team-mate Anthony Gordon in Prague, was involved throughout the 7-0 win in Croatia, and supplied the delivery that mattered at Wembley. England won all three of his games, scoring twelve and conceding none. The BBC, Telegraph and Mirror each gave him a seven in Prague, and nobody suggested he looked out of place.

Nor is this a flash. Hall has been the most dependable player in a Newcastle side still finding its feet under Matthias Jaissle: five league starts, a FotMob average of 7.53, an 8.6 at Tottenham where a 20-yard curler rose just over the top corner, a low cross against Liverpool that deserved a finish, an assist against Bournemouth and the winning goal against Hull. A new long-term contract followed in September, and Manchester United’s reported interest has not gone away. The standard barely shifts, whichever shirt he pulls on.

Carry that to Coventry and Jaissle’s left side is in secure hands.

Yoane Wissa: the finish returns

Seventy-two minutes. That was how long Equatorial Guinea kept Yoane Wissa out before he scored the goal that settled DR Congo’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.

Four days later, in Zimbabwe, he was at the centre of everything: a goal, an assist, a constant threat in behind, and a FotMob rating of 8.69, the highest any of these six players earned in the window. Two goals and an assist in two games is a good return for any striker. For one who had been waiting a month, it is better.

This is the Wissa Newcastle supporters met in August. He hooked in an overhead kick at Tottenham and threaded the pass that created Joe Willock’s goal against Liverpool, a striker with a point to prove after a disappointing first season. September was quieter. FotMob shows no goal or assist in his four club appearances before the break, and the ratings sat between 6.0 and 6.9.

The fortnight seems to have put the finish back in his game. He also missed both friendlies against Uganda, so he returns having played only two of DR Congo’s four games. A scoring touch rediscovered and fresher legs make useful baggage for the trip to Coventry.

Bazoumana Touré: a late cameo, a decisive finish

Two late substitutes broke Somalia’s resistance in Abidjan, and one of them plays his club football in Coventry.

Yann Gboho, who joined the Premier League newcomers from Toulouse on 4 September, scored Ivory Coast’s opener in the 89th minute. Bazoumana Touré, on since the 65th, added the second in the fifth minute of stoppage time, putting away the rebound after Yan Diomande’s shot came back off the post. Ivory Coast had dominated for 90 minutes and needed a winger with a striker’s sense of where the ball would land.

That instinct has become a habit. Touré scored against West Brom in the EFL Cup and again at Leeds, coming off the bench in a game already lost, and now this. Three goals in 103 minutes of football is a small sample, but it points one way.

The rest of his window was lighter: four minutes in the win over Ghana and an hour in a 1-0 friendly defeat to Cameroon. For a 20-year-old whose Newcastle minutes arrive in bursts, the case for more of them has just got a little stronger.

Gboho scored in the same match, and he is a Coventry player now. Touré may get the chance to compare notes on Monday.

Malick Thiaw: a defender with time on his hands

Germany had 32 shots against Serbia to the visitors’ one, which left Malick Thiaw with a curious evening: a centre-back with so little to defend that he had three shots himself.

Greece, three days later, were far tougher. The 0-0 draw gave him a full 90 minutes and a booking at the very end, but also plenty of confident forward passing from the back. Both performances sat close to eight on FotMob.

The timing matters. Thiaw wore the armband at Leeds on 14 September, in a 4-1 defeat that was as bruising as the score suggests. One of Calvert-Lewin’s goals took a deflection off him, and FotMob marked the night at 5.5, the lowest of his games to that point. Five days later he was back at 7.4 against Hull, and then came two good displays for Germany.

It also came under a new coach in Jürgen Klopp, whose Germany had lost 1-0 at home to Greece the week before, so a calm night at the back was worth having. It is an uneven season so far. He supplied an assist in the EFL Cup win over West Brom and has also had nights like Bournemouth and Leeds. But the line has turned upwards at the right moment, and a defender who returns from 180 minutes of top-level football without conceding has done his work.

Lukáš Horníček: the saves that did not count

Lukáš Horníček’s best moment against Croatia came in a game he lost.

Just before half-time he dived low to his right to keep out Petar Sučić, and he finished the match with four saves, three of them from inside the box. But Croatia’s winner came from a Marco Pašalić header that he fumbled over the line, and FotMob logs it as an error leading to a goal. Goalkeepers live with those. It still stung.

Wembley was harder. England had the ball and the chances, 17 shots to five, and he conceded three. Sky’s report has him tipping an Alexander-Arnold free-kick away early on, and Czechia saw little of the ball. He started two games, was an unused substitute in two more, and conceded five in the two he played. Czechia lost all four.

It is a contrast with what he left behind. Horníček arrived at the break as one of Newcastle’s steadier performers, rated 8.5 at Tottenham and impressive at Millwall, with only the 4-1 at Leeds to spoil the run. The traffic has run the other way this fortnight, club form strong, country form unkind.

Monday is the first chance to put it right, back behind a defence he knows well.

Matias Fernandez-Pardo: seven minutes, one tackle, one yellow card

That was Matias Fernandez-Pardo’s contribution to Belgium’s 2-0 win in Italy, a late cameo that was all urgency and no time to settle.

Against France he came on with Belgium a goal down and had five minutes, long enough for one shot off target before Michael Olise’s winner for France. He was left out of the squad for the 3-0 win over Turkey, where Nations League matchday squads are limited to 23, and he was an unused substitute in the 4-1 defeat in Paris.

It is not a headline fortnight, and FotMob has no ratings for any of it. What matters is the direction he is travelling in at Newcastle, where his minutes have climbed from 27 against Bournemouth to 58 at Leeds and 74 against Hull. A young forward being trusted for longer stretches is in the right place.

Five minutes against a side of France’s calibre is the sort of exposure a young forward cannot get in training. International call-ups of this kind rarely change a season on their own. They do put a player in a senior dressing room, on the road, warming up, watching how Belgium see out games. If his Newcastle minutes keep rising, those twelve will look like a useful bit of rehearsal.

Coventry on Monday: the hope travels back

Monday night, 8pm, a ground Newcastle have never played a Premier League game at, and a fixture the club has not contested at this level since September 2000, when Alan Shearer’s penalty and a Kevin Gallacher strike won 2-0 at Highfield Road.

Coventry are last season’s Championship winners, under Frank Lampard, at the Coventry Building Society Arena. Newcastle arrive on eight points from five matches: two wins, two draws and one defeat. The 4-1 loss at Leeds was followed by a 2-1 win over Hull, decided by Hall’s goal.

The first four players in this piece have reasons to arrive in good spirits. Hall has been winning and delivering for England, Thiaw has found his level again, Wissa has his goals back and Touré has another in his pocket. Gboho, who scored in the same match as Touré in Abidjan, is a Coventry player now, so the two could meet again on Monday. Horníček and Fernandez-Pardo come back with their own reasons to want the night to start.

Team news will shape the evening more than any international rating. FotMob lists Joelinton, Jacob Ramsey, Anthony Elanga and William Osula with mid-October return dates, and Tino Livramento, who withdrew from England duty through injury, along with Amar Dedić and Dan Burn, as doubtful.

That makes the returning internationals more important, not less. They have spent a fortnight in front of bigger crowds and tougher opposition than most of their clubmates. The hope on Tyneside is that the form, and the confidence, make the journey back.