Pardew full of praise for match-winner Sissoko
Newcastle United boss Alan Pardew claims Moussa Sissoko was "the best player on the pitch" in his side's 1-0 home win over QPR on Saturday.
The French international was on hand 12 minutes from time to power home the only goal of the game to seal a sixth successive victory in all competitions for Newcastle.
And Pardew could not hide his delight at the midfielder's performance, admitting he has been instrumental in the team's recent good form.
The former West Ham boss said after a fifth Premier League success on the spin: "Going forward we carried a threat all game and Moussa Sissoko was the best player on the pitch.
"It was a good team goal. You can see the strengths of our team.
"We're sound defensively and if teams over-commit on the break we're very, very dangerous and so the goal we got was a bit different as the best chances we got were on the break.
"But it was a really well-thought out goal from Moussa."
With injuries to captain Fabricio Coloccini, Cheick Tiote, Steven Taylor and Siem de Jong, it was Sissoko who skippered the side on Saturday - a decision that Pardew admitted he had pondered carefully over.
Get FourFourTwo Newsletter
The best features, fun and footballing quizzes, straight to your inbox every week.
He added: "We had a long discussion about the captaincy because I wanted to make sure with all my staff that it wasn't going to knock him [Sissoko] out of kilter.
"Sometimes with the captain's armband you start thinking about other things and that takes your mind off the game.
"But he just put the armband on and actually he probably grew with it."