Eddie Howe suffered some stinging criticism online on Sunday night but what do the powers that be think about things?
Newcastle United chiefs will leave Eddie Howe and his backroom team to figure out some of the deep-lying issues that are threatening to wreck the 2025/26 season.
The 1-0 loss on Wearside sparked an instant social media inquest on Sunday afternoon with some fans losing patience with the current head coach. However, CEO David Hopkinson and sporting director Ross Wilson won't be swayed by online opinions on the manager's future.
Instead, Newcastle chiefs will look for a "response, not a reaction" to the dismal defeat against the high-flying Black Cats. If a painful loss against Sunderland can be put aside, not easy on Tyneside at the best of times, the board are trying to look towards the bigger picture.
Champions League and Carabao Cup progress, plus the festive run of Premier League games still offer the chance of a revival this term with Newcastle sitting in 12th place. It will be Hopkinson's job to guide PIF and chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
But PIF did not invest almost £500m to be in the bottom half of the table in the Prem. And talk of being "number 1" in English football is all well and good, but at the moment Newcastle aren't the top team in the North-East.
Howe admitted after the game that part of the plan was to sit back. He said: "Our plan in the first half was to be solid and compact.
"Not necessarily to play on the counter-attack on the counter-attack, that would have been a byproduct of that. We certainly wanted to be dominant on the ball, but that didn't happen. Technically, we weren't good enough.
"The second half changed and we wanted to be more aggressive and on the front-foot. We'd conceded by the time there was any passages of play, that was a frustration.
"The pressure changed when we were 1-0 down. We were a little more free and a better version of ourselves."
Howe mentioned "fatigue" in the performance after the match, but did not want to use it as an excuse. But for now it is back to the drawing board for Howe and his staff.
Newcastle are hardly threatened by relegation and are still just four points off the top five. Howe will be the first to admit improvements are needed, and that will be his message to the powers that be.
The feeling is he will get more than enough time to turn things around. That is certainly the view from those down the corridors of power at St James' Park.
There is an acceptance at both the training ground and behind the scenes at C-suite level that things aren't where they should be. But there is also an air of patience too, not to mention the chance of signing new faces in a fortnight's time when the window opens.