Ronaldo

And proceeded to lose 0-1 to one of the worst sides in the Championship.

Who's picking him? The person who has to choose between him and Sammy Aneobi when he really wanted Townsend. Nailed it.

Plenty have said it or alluded to it, man.

Another 4 months of him starting and people want to defend our transfer business, man.

Reduced to this for the sake of a few quid. Burton Albion beat this lot a few days ago, man.

Clark bleeding yet again?

He asked for two new players, and got zero new players. Not his fault.

This team in the current Premier League would probably be around 12th-15th imo. That's a new one, even for you.

Anyone who thinks this is a strong foundation for a PL side is having a laugh, like. There's a lack of quality practically everywhere.

We have 4 Championship defenders playing behind a midfield that doesn't have the pace to offset pressure. No wonder.

I've seen us play worse than this a few times this season tbf.

Well that wasn't coming for about 40 minutes.

How we could do with some pace out wide, man.

Wouldn't say rubbish but you're right, no way he can be starting for us regularly next season.

Give over, man.

3 stitches, no bother.

Shelvey's not shy, like. 15 mins in and he's already bollocked 3 of our players for either not giving him it or giving it to him at the wrong time.

We couldn't have handpicked better opponents for tonight, like. Awful side, very predictable going forward, not to mention the fact there's little to play for - they know they're not going to get top 6 and are probably only 4 wins away from survival.

That's fair. But on the whole I think his starting performances have been quite good, and even though Murphy has shown he is more than capable in this league I would still like to see Mitrovic. No disagreements here. But you can't drop Murphy when he's been playing so well. Honestly, though, if Rafa's here long term I don't think Mitrovic will be. Too much of a disparity in what Rafa wants from his striker and the way he plays.

I was there, he was poor. Not exactly terrible, but not his day at all.

There's more about Newcastle than any other club, tbh. Just get one from eBay for £5.

Nah, we were 11th (I think) when Hughton was sacked so it wasn't really a decision based on results - given that Pardew finishing in 12th was perfectly acceptable. Barton's autobiography offers pretty good insight into it, actually. In our Championship season Hughton was told who to play which created bad precedent with the players and as much as they liked him he didn't carry the weight (as Ashley and Llambias saw it) to convince them to accept the bonus-related pay scheme.

Starts what? Learning how to play football? I will be shocked if Murphy isn't back in. He's not that bad. Needs another chance, has been good every game he's started this season except Oxford and Blackburn. Need a run in the team, get his form and consistency up. Only young, played well whenever asked, superb scoring record, superb assist record, 100% effort, etc etc etc. He's s****. Do you disagree that he's played good when he's started except for the two games i mentioned? 5 goals and 2 assists in the 6 games he's started this season (i don't count the Birmingham game for obvious reasons). He played poorly at home to Cardiff. Got an assist early on then looked all over the shop for the rest of the game. I like Mitro but lets not rewrite history.

I made the point earlier that we basically had a PL side for the second half of that promotion season. We certainly don't now.