Andy

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.

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.

To be fair, it's equally mental how bi-polar some fans are when it comes to evaluating him. We have a "good" squad for the championship but we're not exactly Real Madrid and we're not going to win every week, nor or we going to dominate games every week whether home or away, so when the wheels come off it's a bit stupid throwing a hissy fit over it. There's a lot of work to be done and I'm pretty sure Rafa knows that.

Merry Christmas everyone

People read far too much into stuff like saying he's happy at the moment is a pragmatic way of answering the question, nothing more.

Reads a bit like RTG's users shouting "mag" at first opportunity in here like I haven't been to the stadium of light recently but the atmosphere at SJP generally is cack these days tbf, especially if we're losing

One's who the club released on a free, rightly or wrongly? Probably aye

There's definitely a lot of truth to this like. You'd expect any player on a night out to be very careful to sing from the hymn sheet the club expects him to sing from. There's no way he'd speak out against the regime in case he was unknowingly talking to a journo or whatever.

I'll remember Sissoko as being a great athlete, no doubt, but as a footballer he's always been technically frustrating with progressively less end-product the longer he's been here. His goals/assists statistics from last season were pathetic for a supposed £30 million player, and while statistics never tell the full story his actual performances often told a worse one tbh. He's probably better at this level than what we've got, aye, ability wise, but he hasn't been motivated to play for us for ages. He couldn't even produce performances consistently when he was "happy" here so what good would keeping him around this season have been? The bloke has spat his dummy all summer, he would've been a terrible influence in the dressing room if we'd refused to sell him and playing him would've sent a disastrous message to the rest of the squad who did want to be here. Best athlete? Yup. Best player? Highly debatable statement at the best of times given his actual product. Best player for us to have kept around given the circumstances surrounding him and the club? Absolutely fucking not. Regardless of whether that money is even reinvested his position at the club had become pretty much untenable.

I'd just rather we kept our best players, tbh. If Mike Ashley pocketing £30m gets you hard, fair play. His overall performance and contribution last season was shite, he vehemently doesn't want to be here, and he's taken a massive strop over not being able to leave which would instantly transfer to the dressing room and onto the pitch. I can't see why anyone would be unhappy about this transfer other than to be pointlessly contrary. As fans we get nothing out of this, man. If he'd stayed we'd be a better side. It's not tough to figure out. I don't feel like we'd be a better side at all for having a player on the pitch who publicly didn't want to be there like (and who the fans didn't want either). I don't see how that would rub-off well on the other players at all. And besides that, purely from a footballing perspective, I've never seen Sissoko play well against this level of opposition ever. He'd blatantly go missing in every match, especially when he's already in an absolute huff with the world for not getting his big move. Even if that £30m isn't reinvested (I feel like it will be, fwiw) I honestly don't think we're worse off for him leaving, given the circumstances. It's maybe not something to celebrate, but it's certainly not something to bemoan.