Steve Bruce did little to raise the spirits of a fanbase who are growing sick to the back teeth of what sound like tired old excuses.
The Magpies were beaten 2-0 at Manchester City but supporters watching from back home didn't expect anything other than a defeat against Pep Guardiola's men.
The only surprise was that the scoreline wasn't greater, but the post-game Press conference revealed exactly where Newcastle are going into 2021.
In it, Bruce - who had talked optimistically about pushing for the top 10 back in July - stated that his "remit" was to keep Newcastle in the top-flight.
He said: "All the fans are like we are – we have to accept where we are. It’s as straightforward as that.
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"My remit is to make sure that Newcastle stay and remain a Premier League outfit.
"That’s what I’ll try to achieve. That’s where we’ve been for the last three or four years.
"Of course, for Newcastle, in a lot of people’s eyes, that isn’t going to be enough.
"But that is where we are at the moment.
"We have to accept it and keep trying to move it a little bit forward."
When explaining the 2-0 loss to Man City, Bruce said: "We lacked a little bit of quality in the final third and have given the ball away for the second goal, but I couldn’t fault their effort, application or attitude towards the game."
Bruce offered only clipped answers when asked by Chronicle Live to expand on the "mass hysteria" that supposedly followed the -1-0 loss to Brentford.
He then said: "There’s been a lot of criticism of the way we limped out of the cup, so the one thing you need is a response.
"It was always going to be difficult coming here, but I couldn’t have asked for any more in terms of the commitment and attitude shown by them.
"I’ll let other people judge that.
"We had a bad week, but some of the mass hysteria, in my opinion, was unfair.
"A lot of it was not right, in my opinion. I’m probably going to say that, but that’s my opinion on it."
