As full-time loomed, Eddie Howe pointed at Erik ten Hag. The finger of blame for this limp defeat must also be directed at the Manchester United manager.
Howe took umbrage with Ten Hag's complaint about Nick Pope's time-wasting when David de Gea had been at it in the first half. United attempted to beat Newcastle at their own game with their gamesmanship and dependence on the counter-attack. They failed.
That questionable balance was an admission of Newcastle's status as top-four competitors. It was beneath Ten Hag and it never came close to succeeding.
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United made two substitutions with the game goalless and were still lifeless. Newcastle were enlivened and five minutes later Joe Willock nodded in. There were three more changes from Ten Hag and Newcastle soon scored again.
The Newcastle substitutes charged past the gruff Ten Hag to celebrate Willock's winner and their coaching staff spilled onto the pitch. It has been a lifetime since this fixture felt so significant in the Premier League for Geordies and Newcastle have now supplanted United to take third place.
Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Lisandro Martinez attempted quick getaways at full time only to be instructed to acknowledge the away-dayers by Bruno Fernandes and Steve McClaren.
This was an extension of the fatigued form United displayed in all of March and the tail-end of February. Come Monday evening, they may have tumbled down to fifth.
Newcastle have played a dozen fewer matches than United this term but three of Ten Hag's starters had not played in a fortnight, Luke Shaw had gone 10 days without playing and Marcel Sabitzer nine.
This performance again undermined Ten Hag's insistence United fare well without Casemiro. They rode their luck against Leicester in February and Fulham in March but not against higher-calibre opponents with a high-calibre midfielder in the influential Bruno Guimaraes.
Overlooking Fred, missed almost as much as Casemiro in the 70 minutes that Fulham dominated a fortnight ago, was a risk that backfired. Fred is one of United's most constant pressers and without him they lacked a productive balance to halt Guimaraes or goal-threats Willock and Sean Longstaff.
Ten Hag's thinking was so muddled he hooked Raphael Varane and Lisandro Martinez, United's two centre halves, with Newcastle only a goal up in the dying embers. Callum Wilson killed the contest from a free-kick.
This was a raucous throwback to the Ferguson and Keegan era of the 90s and easily the most significant league meeting between the clubs since United's vintage 6-2 triumph in April 2003. This performance was at the opposite end of the spectrum. United did not show up.
United's supporters harked back to those golden days, airing their paean to Andy Cole and singing 'cheer up Alan Shearer'. Shearer is cheerful enough tonight. Newcastle were not often above United during his 10 years poaching at the Gallowgate End.
The United technical director Darren Fletcher puffed out his cheeks in admiration at the sight of the black-and-white ocean at kick-off. Two surfer flags that read 'We are Newcastle' and 'We are the Mags' consumed the Gallowgate and the Laezes Ends.
Newcastle fed off that atmosphere. United seemed to play for a point. Too often, they were too small-time, high-fiving after conceding corners and lacking a motivational voice on the pitch to assert any authority.
The United goal led a charmed life in the first half, with David de Gea repelling the ball twice in as many seconds and Willock unable to keep the ball under the crossbar in the first half alone. Three-and-a-half years on from Matty's strike past De Gea, brother Sean came close to a spectacular second Longstaff goal against United. United only had a modicum of hope entering the last 10 minutes through another De Gea denial that beggared belief.
Substitutes Jadon Sancho and Anthony Martial started their warm-ups four minutes into the restart. Martial, on his first squad appearance in 78 days after missing the last 18 games, was the only United squad member clad in tracksuit bottoms, a long-sleeved top, gloves, a hat and a snood before kick-off on the sunniest day of the year on the Tyne. Martial and Sancho started removing their tracksuits 10 minutes after their jogs.
Fletcher was urging Wout Weghorst to lead a press that was absent all afternoon. The United players appeared reluctant to service a battering ram whose two goals have been rebounds and for the first time that Martial and Weghorst were available, the former replaced the latter on the hour. Martial had United's best goalscoring opportunity.
The stadium compere mispronounced McTominay's name. He will have to remember it if Newcastle make an acceptable offer for the United midfielder but they won't on this evidence. McTominay is still mired in an identity crisis at club level after four goals in two internationals for Scotland.
On the two previous occasions McTominay was in tandem with Sabitzer, the Scot was hooked at half-time with the game goalless in the FA Cup fifth round against West Ham and withdrawn with Fulham a goal up in the next round. Sabitzer, also scorer of two goals during the March international, was the deeper midfielder. He did not plug the gap.
Ten Hag smacked his forehead in frustration at a loose pass from Sabitzer on a breakaway and he was so discombobulated he once ended up at right-back with Allan Saint-Maximin charging in his direction. De Gea outstretched his arms in disbelief as the midfielders invited Fabian Schar to have a potshot.
Diogo Dalot was pitted against Saint-Maximin, having been withdrawn at the interval of the League Cup final against the Frenchman. Had Aaron Wan-Bissaka not succumbed to illness on Sunday morning, he would have been selected to contain the mercurial Saint-Maximin. Dalot was constantly on the back foot and Lisandro Martinez rollocked the right-back for allowing a cross in.
Newcastle pressed with gusto whenever De Gea, accused of time-wasting by Howe's assistant Jason Tindall in the eighth minute, had the ball. De Gea bypassed one charge so impressively that Ten Hag put his hands together along with the United supporters still audible in the nosebleed territory. That was United's undoing for Willock's breakthrough.
Tindall attempted to antagonise Antony, avenged by Dan Burn for his cup final ridicule, and Ten Hag. On one occasion, Ten Hag shook his head as Tindall vented at the fourth official. Ten Hag was apoplectic when Marcus Rashford was denied a free-kick, the United forward tossing his boot to the turf in disgust, and more irate than the voluble Tindall.
Rashford's expression was also on behalf of United, overwhelmed by Newcastle's intensity all afternoon. The finger of blame has to be pointed at the manager.
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