Andy

Defensively really dodgy again. I don't think Lascelles is the best defender in the world by any means but we look incredibly fragile without him. Midfield have been alright, but it's important rafa gets Shelvey on before Diame fades or we'll get severely overrun.

Maybe people will just call it as they see it? He was utterly diabolical at times and has improved considerably in the two most recent games. Aye. I think the biggest concern and criticism was that he was the one we spent big on instead of a striker.

He's usually a lot better with his passing but he hoofed it so much yesterday Been like that all season tbh. Doesn't seem to have the confidence to do anything else in the top league.

As with any takeover it's a gamble. The thing is, we're in a rut and we have been for years; we all know that on his very, very best behaviour Mike Ashley would see us into the Europa League again (only for a threadbare squad to struggle the next season), and at his worst he'd relegate us again and do just about enough get us back up. And really that's the status quo; one that is as equally uninispiring as it is unsustainable. There's been no real cause for optimism for years - Rafa is set aside as being an uncharacteristically tremendous move on the club's part, but even then the structure of the club only affords him a pretty low ceiling in terms of what he can realistically achieve here. New owners could be a disaster, change isn't always good, but we're long overdue a dice roll IMO.

If we play as we did today against the poorer teams in the league we'll be fine. Defending was poor but I feel like we just missed Lascelles really; Clark and Lejeune don't compliment each other at all.

He was a little iffy today against a strike force that he won't be facing every week, and he's still new to the league. Nowt to worry about.

Playing quite well, but there's that common frustration that we're playing with more attacking fluidity and tempo against man utd than we have against some of the weaker teams this season. Still performing to our best in the wrong games, even under Benitez.

How is that statement funny? It is blatantly obvious that he should be getting a chance. He's third choice striker and the other two aren't scoring goals. Rafa is an intelligent manager but that doesn't make him immune to making wrong decisions. He also sees things that you don't see, whether on match days or on non-match days. Aye. He's definitely seeing things I don't see if he thinks Joselu is the answer. All that's genuinely relevant in football is what happens on a match day. He might be Neymar-esque in training but when he consistently hits the ball with less power than my nan on a Saturday it counts for nothing. So basically you're seeing faults in a player. The same thing can be said about Mitrovic. I'm guessing Rafa thinks that Joselu is more reliable in maintaining discipline and team cohesion - which is Rafa's first priority. Aye, but my original post was saying Mitrovic is overdue a chance, which isn't an unfair statement considering his goal record is better in the premier league than the two strikers in front of him and we've failed to score in the last couple of games. It's hard to make an argument for Joselu offering better "team cohesion" anyway when we haven't really had any cohesion in an attacking sense lately.

How is that statement funny? It is blatantly obvious that he should be getting a chance. He's third choice striker and the other two aren't scoring goals. Rafa is an intelligent manager but that doesn't make him immune to making wrong decisions. He also sees things that you don't see, whether on match days or on non-match days. Aye. He's definitely seeing things I don't see if he thinks Joselu is the answer. All that's genuinely relevant in football is what happens on a match day. He might be Neymar-esque in training but when he consistently hits the ball with less power than my nan on a Saturday it counts for nothing.

How is that statement funny? It is blatantly obvious that he should be getting a chance. He's third choice striker and the other two aren't scoring goals. Rafa is an intelligent manager but that doesn't make him immune to making wrong decisions.

Nobody is saying Mitrovic has "got better", or that he's the long-term answer, but it's blatantly obvious that he'd offer more than Joselu and Gayle at the moment - or at least something different - and shouldn't be sat on the bench for the entire 90 when we need a goal.

Rafa's feud with him is costing us at the minute, hate to say it but it's almost Pardew/Ben Arfa like.

No he didn't struggle he made one mistake

Not his biggest fan, but at the very least he needs to be on the bench. Offers infinitely more than Gayle at this level. Whenever Joselu comes off we're pretty much down to 10 men.

Looks very, very limited so far. Would rather the money spent on him and Joselu had gone on a better striker.

He played well today tbf. The challenge for the penalty was dim as fuck, but one that all defenders will make at some point in their career; too eager to impress having being left out of the last few games, perhaps, tries to nip in and gets done by Long who has no intention of doing anything other than kicking the ball as far away as possible. Frustrating, but meh, just has to learn from it.

Strange comment. We would have won in spite of Elliott if it hadn't been for an utterly stupid tackle by Lejeune.

Sloppy on the ball today but his break-up play was excellent

His end product is outstanding like. If he had a bit more pace/dribbling ability he'd be a top class player.

Some bad misses today but we missed his all round game as soon as he went off.

He was shaky first half, but your overly harsh assessment is just as ridiculous as those praising him tbf. He looks better going forward than our other options in that position, jury is out on him defensively but he's just played a part in a clean sheet where we defended well, so that bodes well for me.

Die. He's not wrong though. Well, he is. Pardew had us playing drastically worse football with better players.

Same shite side that dominated this match for 85 minutes? We couldn't create a single clear-cut chance against the third worse defence in the division, man. Well that's a lie. Aye, I can't even comprehend how much of a contrary agenda you need to be able to say we created nowt in that game like. We had a handful of chances, but we didn't create a single definite goalscoring chance apart from the two that were rightly ruled out. Gayle and Clark were both denied by their keeper from close range, just for starters.

Same shite side that dominated this match for 85 minutes? We couldn't create a single clear-cut chance against the third worse defence in the division, man. Well that's a lie. Aye, I can't even comprehend how much of a contrary agenda you need to have to be able to say we created nowt in that game like.

Eh? It was basically the same as the end of the second half up until five minutes before they scored from a set piece. We're playing Blackburn though, not Liverpool. And we're Newcastle, not Liverpool. You really think we were doing well in this half until they scored? What did we create? We've had two goals chalked off and their keeper has made a canny few saves. Rafa's left the changes too late and the goal we conceded was stupid, but to argue that we haven't created enough to have won the game on another day is bollocks tbf. Yeah I never said we didn't create enough to win the game, you've made that up. I was talking about the second half. Both disallowed goals were correctly disallowed though so irrelevant It's just been one of those games mate, on another day we would have won; it's not worth wetting the bed over. We're not so good that we're going to comfortably win every week, especially with our most creative player suspended. There's a lot of work to be done in January.