'I'm still a Newcastle player' - Papiss Cisse exclusive as his selfless transfer wish revealed

It was an afternoon where some Newcastle United supporters would have even welcomed the sight of a 36-year-old Papiss Cisse playing up front. That's how wasteful the Magpies were at Vicarage Road after squandering a host of opportunities in a frustrating 1-1 draw that fittingly served as one of the final games of both the Ashley and Bruce eras.

Cisse would have loved to have been out there, himself, but the man who previously wore Newcastle's number nine shirt got to experience the next best thing as he watched on from the stands last September. Cisse was training with Watford at the time, ahead of securing a move to Turkish side Caykur Rizespor, and was invited to the game by former Newcastle team-mate Moussa Sissoko, but the striker may as well have been in the away end.

As close as Cisse is to Sissoko, who started for Watford that day, the veteran said he almost felt 'too much emotion' when he saw the Newcastle players come out of the tunnel before kick-off because he was 'so happy'. That trademark smile was even wider after Sean Longstaff fired the visitors in front.

Newcastle ended up dropping points that day - who could forget John Anderson's fury after that Jacob Murphy miss late on? - and it would be another few months before the relegation-threatened black-and-whites even won a match. However, Cisse, who went down with Newcastle in 2016, never lost faith and that belief was strengthened following the takeover, the appointment of head coach Eddie Howe and the arrival of a handful of new signings.

"Every time I was at home sitting with my kids, I was telling my son, Ousmane, 'You know what? We're going to come back. Wait and see. We won't go down. We're black and whites. We're going to stay here,'" he recalled