The message from St James' Park rings loud and clear: Newcastle's loss is Everton's gain.
And according to some supporters, had Rafa Benitez still been in charge in the North East then their club could be pushing for European qualification.
Instead, Newcastle fans continue to rue his acrimonious departure in 2019, struggle to get behind his replacement and, now, look at Everton and see a club whose fortunes are about to change for the better.
"Back him financially at Everton you will win something next season," said prominent Newcastle fan, Steve Wraith.
Alex Hurst, a board member at the Newcastle United Supporters' Trust, adds: "If Rafa Benitez had signed a new contract and been given the resources Steve Bruce has been given.....the team would be in the top eight, if not challenging for the top six."
Benitez's arrival as Everton manager has been highly contentious and the most controversial appointment in the club's history.
The Spaniard was welcomed with open arms at Newcastle in 2016 but fast-forward four years and many Blues supporters have been up in arms about the decision to replace Carlo Ancelotti with the old Liverpool boss.
Yet the references from those in the United fan-base, could not be more glowing.
They have spoken of feeling "crushed" when he left at the end of his contract and Benitez's departure was seen as the catalyst for 10,000 fans not renewing their season ticket, in protest.
"The progress we saw under Rafa Benitez was extraordinary each season, despite being shafted in the transfer market each season," said Hurst.
"The club, because of Rafa Benitez, went from relegation and looking at financial oblivion to being very profitable in the 18-19 accounts. The club turned an £18m profit and had a lot of cash in the bank.
"Rafa Benitez was on record as saying he didn't want to buy Joelinton for £40m, which is the worst bit of business ever done by a Premier League club because he is so bad. Rafa Benitez saw through that and would've used those resources to bring in players who would've improved the team. I'm confident Newcastle United would be flying as a football team now, would have a lot more paying supporters and the future would look a lot brighter, rather than looking bleak as it does now."
"Had he stayed at Newcastle and been backed financially, I feel we would have been looking ahead to dusting down the passports again and travelling [around] Europe," Wraith said.
"Rafa would have won us our first domestic trophy since 1955, of that I am convinced. For now we are stuck with Bruce-ball. We just hope our takeover goes through and we can look forward to lifting this permanent fog on the Tyne."
Benitez arrived at St James' Park having been sacked as boss of Real Madrid in January 2016.
By mid-March he was in the Newcastle dugout and tasked with trying to save the club from relegation, with just 10 games left.
"He didn't need Newcastle United, whereas the other managers that Mike Ashley has appointed needed Newcastle to be a Premier League manager," Hurst says.
"If you look at Alan Pardew, sacked by Southampton in League One, Steve McLaren, sacked by Derby County in the Championship and Steve Bruce, sacked by Aston Villa in the Championship. So being sacked by Real Madrid has a slightly different ring to it."
Benitez couldn't keep Newcastle up.
Sunderland's 3-0 win over Everton not only sealed Roberto Martinez's fate as Blues boss, but also confirmed Newcastle's drop into the Championship.
The Spanish boss was not put off by the challenge and chose not to exercise a break clause in his three-year contract which allowed him to walk away, should they be demoted.
"Benitez lifted the place," said Lee Lawler, of Newcastle Fans' TV.
"We went down to the Championship but when Rafa took over, and if the league started from that date, we would have finished top 10."
Promotion, as champions, would be secured at the first time of asking, despite Benitez having to sell off the squad's prized assets.
Then Everton boss Ronald Koeman had been interested in both Georginio Wijnaldum and Moussa Sissoko but two of Newcastle's star players would go to Liverpool and Tottenham, respectively.
That summer, Benitez had wanted to take Brendan Galloway on loan from the Blues but the young defender opted for a switch to West Brom.
"He managed to get us promoted from the Championship, making a £30m net profit on transfers," Hurst explains.
"You look at the majority of teams that were relegated, Stoke are a good example. They spent a lot of money in trying to get promoted again and failed. Rafa Benitez managed to get promoted at the first attempt, as champions, despite having to make a £30m transfer profit. Selling the club's best players and still getting promoted, just doesn't happen that often at Championship level, in the past decade."
Wraith agrees. "He got us promoted at the first time of asking and that was not an easy challenge," he said.
"So we knew, strangely, that going down we weren't too disappointed because we had hope we could rebuild," Lawler adds.
"We sold Sissoko, Wijnaldum and Janmaat for over £60m and he bought clever players, with Premier League experience, and players who were top end Championship players."
Benitez's Newcastle finished 10th in the 2017-18 Premier League season and then 13th in what would be his final campaign at the club.
The supporters we spoke to believe the former Valencia boss did remarkably well with the resources he had.
"His team in the Premier League were greater than the sum of their parts," Hurst said.
"They weren't a fantastic team but they got better as the season progressed. A team full of limited players, players who were bought on budget deals from Premier League clubs, the likes of Christian Atsu and Joselu couldn't get on the bench yet were playing for the first-team at Newcastle United.
"Mo Diame was another one, that Hull were happy to let go after promotion from the Championship and Rafa Benitez had him playing as the best central midfielder in the Premier League for a couple of months at the back end of 2018.
"He essentially took a load of Premier League cast offs and made them into a team that was better than it should have been.
"He spoke the language of fans. He didn't just want to stay in the Premier League, finish 12th, and consider it an achievement, like Steve Bruce has just said. It is not an achievement, it is not something to shout about, he wanted better and that connection worked well for both.
"Finally, his teams were hard to beat, hard to beat, his teams rarely lost by more than two goals, he made sure Newcastle were always in games and even though the team was worth a fraction of the teams we played against, there were famous days at St James' where we beat Man United, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, the famous comeback against Everton. We should not have been able to lay a glove on those teams but that is testament to Benitez's ability to forge a team."
"When you have no financial backing as a manager you have to cut your cloth accordingly," Wraith points out.
"Rafa did a great job on a shoestring budget. He loves the game, is a tactics man, and can set up to attack or defend. It is very much horses for courses. Back him financially at Everton you will win something next season."
Lawler concedes the football "wasn't great at times" under Benitez but has repeated the belief that the manager was doing wonders with very little.
"....but it got you results, you have to remember he's dealing with a £5m striker in Joselu, a £5m winger in Christian Atsu - you see where I'm going with this?" he said.
"Benitez didn't have the chance to go crazy and get top tier players, they were fifth, sixth and seventh choices per position.
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"However Joelinton was scouted towards the end of Benirez's reign and the club went nuts splashing £40m on a lad who isn't a quarter of that price in terms of ability. Why wasn't Benitez backed? I think he will be at Everton, that's a huge difference for him."
Hurst adds: "By the end of the 18-19 season, Newcastle played some excellent football. He managed to forge a really good counter-attacking team.
"Quite often, Newcastle went into games with a starting XI worth less than £70m or £80m, when some opposition players would be worth as much as that. Very unfair to say the football was hard to watch. It was necessary at times but by the end of each season the football got better, the team got better and the results got better."
It seems clear that Benitez was loved by the majority of Newcastle supporters, who still regret his departure, over two years on.
"Rafa Benitez was adored by the vast, vast majority of Newcastle United support," Hurst told the ECHO.
"You only have to look at the fact that 10,000 people walked away from the football club when he wasn't retained, or left, whichever way you want to look at it. That is a huge drop off in season ticket sales and attendances, for the first time in the Premier League era apart from earlier in the Ashley era when he tried to rename the stadium, that ticket sales have consistently dropped below 50,000. The club had to hand out 10,000 free season tickets to attract some of those people who left because of Rafa's departure.
"A hugely popular manager and certainly the most popular manager since Sir Bobby Robson and Kevin Keegan."
"Rafa was held in high esteem by Newcastle United fans and still is," adds Wraith.
"He understood the club, bought into the history, respected the fans and wasn’t a yes man to owner Mike Ashley."
Lawler said Benitez offered supporters one key commodity.
"The thing is about Rafa, no one previously under the Ashley regime, since when Keegan was appointed (and we all know what happened later there) gave us hope. He always mentioned the fans, to strive on, become more ambitious, setting targets. He was, and still is, adored by many for the reason alone for one word: hope."
Lawler vividly remembers the emotions he felt when it was confirmed that Benitez would not be signing a new contract at the club.
"I remember coming out of work, which is next door to St James', and I actually felt crushed," he said.
"I saw the local press and Sky Sports interviewing fans, I had my say but all that hope I talked about, was gone just like that and immediately I feared for the future and feared which dinosaur manager would come in. Anyone after Rafa wouldn't be liked."
Wraith added: "His relationship with the regime had disintegrated and there was no way back.
"As a collective, the majority of fans were sad to see him go and even sadder when former Sunderland manager Steve Bruce replaced him."
Benitez's decision to leave Newcastle was not a shock to supporters who had seen protracted talks over a new deal come to nothing.
The Spaniard wanted to stay but felt the conditions for him to take Newcastle to the next level were not there.
As Newcastle fans feared, Benitez walked away and they voted with their feet.
"Essentially, it was the end of a lifelong association with Newcastle United [for many]" Hurst says.
"Ten thousand season tickets were cancelled, thousands walked away from the club. The appointment of recently sacked Championship manager Steve Bruce didn't help that, in terms of bringing fans back. Newcastle had such a good end to the 18-19 season, after a difficult first six months of that season, everything was on a high and thousands of thousands of fans walked away. Even the fans who didn't walk away, feel less connected to the club. Fans were completely sick and tired of the club because they had let one of the best managers in the Premier League go, and replaced him with a manager who, simply, would not have been offered any other Premier League job, a guy who hadn't been offered a Premier League job since 2010, meant the club wasn't worth the time and the effort. A lot of people felt betrayed.
"The final game of the 2018-19 season was a 4-0 win at Fulham, 6,000 Newcastle fans in the away end and they spent all game asking him to stay. Mike Ashley was at the game but he took no notice."
Many Evertonians will say the same about Farhad Moshiri but speak to Newcastle fans and they will, emphatically, say that the Blues have made a wise choice.
