The bad news for Manchester United was not so much that they were overtaken by Newcastle United and suffered a third consecutive home defeat in the league for the first time since 1979.
The bad news for Ruben Amorim and his team was not so much that they embarrassed themselves in a first half in which Newcastle made the game look like men against boys and should have put the contest out of reach.
The bad news wasn't even that United looked clueless, desperate and foolish in those first 45 minutes and deservedly fell to their fifth league defeat in the last six games with a flattering 2-0 scoreline.
No, the bad news for Amorim and United was that Ipswich Town won on Monday night. The bad news was that Ipswich shocked the league by beating Chelsea at Portman Road, moving seven points behind United in the process.
That is the reality for United now. Any hope of qualifying for the Champions League was long gone. They are in 14th place and falling fast. They play Liverpool on Sunday and, on this evidence, have no chance of getting anything out of it.
They are in a fight for relegation. That's the truth. The results to pay attention to for now are Ipswich, Wolves, Crystal Palace and Everton. Because that's his level now. That's the company they keep. “Say hello to Sunderland,” the Geordie fans chanted. If United don't start winning soon, that could be their fate.
Rubén Amorim's team suffered its third consecutive defeat in the Premier League on Monday night
Manchester United are in 14th place, seven points ahead of Ipswich in the relegation zone
The Red Devils have only kept a clean sheet in one of the 11 games that Amorim has coached
United recovered a little in the second half against Newcastle, but it was not enough to erase the memory of the chaos of the first half. Without the suspended Bruno Fernandes in midfield, they looked even worse than in recent defeats to Bournemouth and Wolves.
Amorim, a coach who has brought a rebound to United's fortunes since arriving from Sporting Lisbon two months ago, has made the team even worse as he tries to juggle the meager resources left to him by Erik ten Hag and the cowboys he They have been carrying out recruitment at Old Trafford.
“Farewell in the morning,” the Newcastle fans sang to him as the game slipped away from his team in the closing stages. Even Amorim's clash with Marcus Rashford has started to look boring now.
Amorim brought him back to the team after a four-match exile, but left him sitting on the bench while other substitutions were made. This United team is so bad that even an out of sorts Rashford could only make it better.
Instead, we are left with this United lament with the moribund partnership of Casemiro and Christian Eriksen outplayed and outpaced in midfield. Newcastle, for whom Alexander Isak scored his 11th goal in his last 11 league games, were excellent in the first half but there was a macabre fascination in seeing how far Amorim's team had fallen.
These are times of enormous uncertainty for United. The club seems to be in chaos on and off the pitch. Sir Jim Ratcliffe is shaving a few thousand dollars off United's running costs here and there with a series of unpopular cuts, while sanctioning the spending of £52 million on a player like Manuel Ugarte.
The suggestion is that United's recruitment has been so poor, so wasteful and so extravagant for so long that not even English football's biggest club can cash its way out of trouble this time.
Let us not forget that critics of the Profit and Sustainability Rules say that they are based on the supremacy of the big clubs. United's cocktail of waste and incompetence has also exploded that argument. If PSR are clipping United's wings while they find themselves marooned in mid-table, it's a sign it's working.
Newcastle rise to fifth place in the table, three points behind Chelsea in the last place in the top four
United have scored just 21 goals in the league this season, the fifth fewest of any team.
However, it is yet another problem that Amorim must face as he tries to adapt to his new job. He has been brutally honest about the magnitude of the task he faces and did not change his stance when speaking before the game.
“We know that when there are bad results, it is really difficult to sell an idea,” Amorim said. 'I will not change my ideas because for me it would be the end. You have to be really focused on your idea. “If you start changing because of the results, it's the end for any coach and I'm very clear about that.”
Brave words but they couldn't change the fact that United started the game emanating all the nerves of a team in free fall. Their defense was torn apart by some good play from Newcastle with less than four minutes left on the clock.
Some clever interaction on the right handed the ball to Bruno Guimaraes and he played a pass wide left for Lewis Hall. Hall sent a cross into the middle and Isak rose six yards unopposed to head the ball past Andre Onana.
Lisandro Martínez, captain in the absence of the suspended Bruno Fernandes, was one of the United centre-backs who stood and watched as Isak rose to receive the cross. Harry Maguire was the other. It was defending straight from the circus playbook.
United were embarrassingly poor in those early stages. Isak made the third of his three puppets at the back, Matthijs de Ligt, look like a cup, Gordon hitting the ball past Noussair Mazraoui as if it were not there. Newcastle were faster, smarter and hungrier.
Newcastle should have doubled their lead after 16 minutes. Guimaraes dispossessed Christian Eriksen in the Newcastle front line and launched the ball towards Isak. A long ball was enough to destroy the entire United defense.
Martínez was guilty again. He looks more like an imposter with each game. Isak left him in the dust and lunged at Onana. This time, his confidence was his undoing. He tried to pass the ball over the goalkeeper, but only managed to lift it directly into his hands.
It could be said that Lisandro Martínez was to blame for the two headed goals that Newcastle scored
United visitor Marcus Rashford returned to the team but was an unused substitute
It was only a brief respite for Amorim's men. Two minutes later, Guimaraes passed the ball towards Gordon, Gordon mocked his marker and lifted a cross into the box and Joelinton rose above the hapless Martinez and flicked the ball over the line.
Newcastle almost took third place after half an hour. By then, there might well have been four or five. The visitors broke through the United defense and Sandro Tonali shot against a post when he should have scored.
Amorim had to do something. He chose to sacrifice Joshua Zirkzee, who seemed, once again, out of it. Thirteen minutes before half-time, Zirkzee's number 11 appeared on the board and a standing ovation echoed around the field. It was a horrible moment. Zirkzee must have felt a very, very long walk to the touchline as Kobbie Mainoo waited to replace him.
United glimpsed their first moment of hope almost immediately. Martínez threw a ball towards Rasmus Hoijlund, but when Hoijlund lifted the ball over Martin Dubravka, he also dragged it just wide of the far post.
Newcastle were so comfortable that they even tried to give United a goal. Fabian Schar took the ball out of defense with the outside of his right foot but sent it straight to Mainoo. Mainoo played it straight to Casemiro, who only had Dubravka to beat, but his tame shot went wide for the first time. It was no surprise that United were booed at half-time.
United started the second half in a more positive way. They could hardly have gotten worse. Maguire almost scored a goal but his diving header hit the post with Dubravka beaten and Hall blocked De Ligt's goal-bound follow-up.
United huffed and puffed after that but were unable to make any real progress. Newcastle fully deserved their victory, Eddie Howe's first league victory at Old Trafford. His team seemed well trained and beautifully coached. Amorim's did not.