Cheers KE I actually feel better for reading that and agree with sentiments. COYP

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

I'll stick up for Mitchell. He was on an island today, and both Andersen and Guehi had below-average games, with some bad luck thrown in. Newcastle were overloading our left side, and we gave him Mitchell no help. One goal resulted from a likely mis-hit, one from Guehi's fall, and one from Hughes's lack of hustle.

Awful performance and it's not going to get any easier with Spurs visiting on Friday.

We simply cannot afford to put out a team that negative again.

Today we had four defenders, two defensive midfielders, a central midfielder in Will Hughes who offers little attacking threat and a forward, in Jordan Ayew, whose defining characteristics can be said to be working hard, tracking back and holding the ball up. It's no wonder that our two strikers didn't get any service.

Rak-Sakyi simply has to start and Ahamada deserves a chance in the Eze role, both in place of Hughes and Mateta who are average. Also if you play Ayew on the left for the moment, it will help protect Mitchell.

Whilst there's no need to overreact after one bad result, Hodgson has to show that he has learnt his lesson rather than sticking with the same old formula time and time again.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold...

JRS showed more effort, desire and more threat in a cameo than JPM or OE showed all game between them. He has to start against spuds and drop one of the two feet draggers. The youngsters (Rak-Sakyi, Franca and Ozoh) added a bit of life but aside from that there were no positives. On the Franca note he strode out and made his debut at Tooncastle Arabia when his team were 4-0 down and didn't look phased at all. A couple more sub appearances and I think he'll be starting. His corners were great.

Johnstone 5 - made one easy save but hard to give him higher
Ward 4 - looked slow again and got caught out because of it
Andersen 4 - like Ward got caught out for pace
Guehi 5 - slipped for one goal but otherwise was ok
Mitchell 3 - didn't get much support in the first half but repeatedly lost Murphy
Doucoure 4 not much went through the middle, but can't remember him doing much good or bad
Lerma 4 like Doucoure didn't seem to do much good or bad
Hughes 3 - a lot of heart but repeatedly switched off and lost the runner and looked off the pace and failed to support Mitchell
Ayew 6 - I actually thought he was ok and helped shut down the left side in the second half.
JPM 3 - misplaced header on goal, failed repeatedly to hold the ball up looked knackered after 5 minutes. Did clear one ball from our box though!
Edouard 4 - had our best shot on goal but other than that offered nothing. Marginally better than JPM.

JRS & Franca 6 - added a bit of life and energy
Ozoh n/a - not on the pitch long enough

We were never getting anything from this game.
No creativity in the midfield and blunt up front.

Spurs will be another tough one, but we need to be upbeat.

Hope so, but our inability to score goals is the biggest concern because you have to score to win games!