Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-36512555-20200202084241/@comment-9782468-20200204061909

His 30% chakra clone didn't maintain the upper hand. It held them off for a while but soundly lost, and even Kakashi noticed something was off about Itachi.

Nothing indicates Itachi was BS'ing about Jiraiya. He could have said literally anything else, like the fact that there was no point in capturing Naruto at that point because they needed to seal the other beasts first, or that fighting Jiraiya in such a public place would cause too much commotion which is not something they wanted to do. Both of these are true statements. Why would he say what he did about Jiraiya if it wasn't true and less likely to convince his partner? Itachi doesn't overly praise people.

Kisame is an excellent match against those who heavily rely on large volumes of chakra, that's why he did so well against Bee.

Kisame's opinion of Itachi's abilities don't supersede Itachi's knowledge of himself and of Konoha's Sannin.

Kisame is brash and will say whatever, unlike Itachi.