Crystal Palace 5-1 Newcastle United

The Newcastle supporters turned on the players in response, lambasting their performance from the stands with critical chants. We expect a reaction from them after the disappointment of losing at home (to Leicester 0-3).

Much like his colleague Bolasie, James McArthur netted a brace in Palace’s 5-1 blitzing of Steve McClaren’s Newcastle.

The club have numerous and long-standing issues, but it is tempting to conclude that the previous year would not have been quite so hard for Newcastle had their former manager, Alan Pardew, not left for Crystal Palace in January.

Plaudits should also go to lone frontman Connor Wickham who held the ball up and brought his team-mates into play with his strong, unselfish work.

Newcastle players were hauled in for extra training on Sunday.

Sunderland moved above their local rivals and out of the bottom three with a 2-0 defeat of Stoke, the second successive win for Sam Allardyce’s Black Cats.

Liverpool are first up at St James’ Park next week, with Jürgen Klopp’s side looking like they’ve turned a corner after successive wins.

On the other side of the coin, on the return journey, the carriage was rammed uncomfortably full of very depressed Geordies and who could blame them?

“It’s tough right now but hopefully someone like Chungy (Lee Chung-yong) can come in and step up to the plate and that’s the reason why we have such a good squad”.

“It’s about doing your job, doing the basics. If there were six or seven, eight games to go, down there, then people would be, but we’re not panicking and I think that’s where experience tells”. “The focus was there from the start of the game, the intent”.

“We have to stay calm, keep doing the right things and keep delivering the right messages and keep saying “you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that”. “The boys have a Christmas party so I hope they enjoy that and behave themselves and it will be a good weekend”.

Steve McClaren’s side got off to a great start when Papiss Cisse opened the scoring with his third goal in as many outings against the London club, but the afternoon soon fell apart for the visitors and descended into a hapless display.

“Our players were really on it today – it was a pivotal game, whoever the opposition was, in our season”. We’ve put ourselves back in amongst the Evertons and Tottenhams, and that’s where we want to be. If we’re in the top 10 then, of course, there’s going to be a chance and we’ll attack it. But we need to get to the end of February first.