Nine games, 52 days, and one transfer window.
That is how long it has taken for Sunderland's season to implode.
To turn the club from promotion favourites into play-off wannabes.
And the way things are going, even the play-offs will be a distant dream unless they can reverse this catastrophic slide.
It seems a lifetime ago since Sunderland went into the New Year as League One leaders, fresh from inflicting a 5-0 demolition job on Sheffield Wednesday at the Stadium of Light, and averaging better than two points-per-game.
Yet only 52 days separate that victory against Wednesday, and this weekend's 2-1 dismal home defeat at the hands of MK Dons which saw them slip out of the play-off places to seventh in the table.
Sunderland produced promotion form in the first half of the season, but relegation form since the turn of the year.
In 2022, they have won only one of their nine games - and lost four of their last five.
Those nine games have yielded a pitiful six points.
Only basement side Crewe Alexandra have collected fewer points in 2022, having picked up four from their own nine games.
And if the sides met tomorrow, my money would be on Crewe.
Sunderland have now lost ten league games this season, which is the first time their defeats column has stretched to double figures in the third tier.
Anyone backing them to finish the season with a 13-game unbeaten run? Me neither.
By comparison, they lost five times in Jack Ross' first season in charge and were in the automatic promotion hunt right until the last week of the season, when two of those defeats occurred.
Sunderland have been plunged into crisis both on and off-the-field in recent weeks, with supporters disaffected, disillusioned and, frankly, disgusted at what is happening to their club.
The prospect of a fifth season in the third tier looms large and if that comes to pass, if Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven retain any stake in the club, and if the planned 10 percent hike in season ticket prices goes ahead, it will be too much for many fans to stomach.
The club's precipitous drop in form, the baffling decisions taken in the January transfer window, the crazy timing of the sacking of Lee Johnson on the eve of deadline day, the Roy Keane sideshow, the long wait until Alex Neil was appointed as head coach, and most recently the revelation that Kyril Louis-Dreyfus is not the majority shareholder of the club after all and owns only slightly more than Donald and Methven put together, means supporters' loyalty is being tested to destruction.
As far as the football is concerned, Neil wasted no time in identifying the problem.
He has inherited a squad containing a coterie of young players such as Dan Neil, Dennis Cirkin and Callum Doyle, who are in their first season playing senior football and have hit the brick wall.
They look physically and mentally shot, and need taking out of the firing line for their own protection - to use Neil's words, they have been 'flogged to death'.
But the alternative is to bring in players who are nowhere near match fit.
January signings Jermain Defoe, Patrick Roberts, and Jack Clarke had barely played before they joined, while Trai Hume is adjusting to the step up from the Irish League.
In the coming weeks, players such as Aiden McGeady, Luke O'Nien and Nathan Broadhead, will return to fitness but, again, they will have been out for months and cannot be expected to start games and produce their best form immediately.
With 13 games to go, time is running out and Alex Neil knows it.
Against MK Dons, Sunderland were dire and were beaten by a better team.
They were second-best in the first half, with only young keeper Anthony Patterson standing between the Dons and a comfortable lead at the break.
January addition Jay Matete was one of Sunderland's better players for much of the match, yet his performance was ruined by the fact that both Dons goals in the second half came after he had given the ball away.
The first, Matete might argue, was a foul but no matter, as soon as he ceded possession midway inside the Dons' half, it was played into the yawning chasm between Bailey Wright and Doyle for Mo Eisa to run through and score.
The second was just a rank bad pass from Matete, intercepted and played forward for Troy Parrott to set up Connor Wickham for the winning goal just minutes after the former Sunderland striker had come on as a substitute.
Between those goals, Ross Stewart ended his six-game barren run to level the scores, and Sunderland had been pushing for a winner until they were caught out again.
Stewart's goal, however, was Sunderland's only on-target effort of the entire match, and that spoke volumes.
Neil's first home game in charge ended in boos from angry supporters in the Roker End.
He faces a huge task to avoid the season ending to a similar soundtrack.
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