There were boos from first whistle to last at the Stadium of Light. Stoke boss Alex Neil - formerly of this parish - was greeted by a cacophony of boos on his return to Wearside; bumbling referee Jeremy Simpson trudged off at half-time with boos ringing in his ears after a rookie error; and those Sunderland fans that stuck it out until the final whistle booed their side off after watching the team collapse like a pack of cards in the second half.
Yes, it was a day when boos reigned supreme. Neil was supposed to be the pantomime villain, last season's promotion-winning Wembley hero-leader turned target of the fans' ire after he left Sunderland to take over at Stoke back in August.
Yet by the end, as Neil was the last man to leave the field, the boos hurled in his direction as a parting shot were pretty half-hearted. Sunderland fans had bigger things to worry about.
READ MORE: Stoke boss Alex Neil insists he is no 'villain' as he speaks about his Sunderland exit
Namely: is their team merely going through its first real sticky patch of the season, or is it more serious than that? Have Sunderland hit the wall two months out from the finishing line?
A last minute equaliser against Bristol City in their last home game a fortnight earlier was an annoyance. Defeat at relegation-threatened Rotherham United three days later was a bolt from the blue. Defeat at Coventry City exposed the deficiencies in a squad that has been depleted by injuries and that was not strengthened sufficiently in the January transfer window.
And now this. A 5-1 humiliation on home soil at the hands of Stoke City, with the Potters becoming the first away team to score five goals and win by a four-goal margin since the move to the Stadium of Light.
Put it together and you have Sunderland's worst run of the season - one point from four games and three defeats on the bounce. Before Nakhi Wells' injury-time penalty earned Bristol a point, Sunderland were about to climb to fourth in the table.
Fast forward two weeks and when the final whistle went against the Potters, Sunderland slipped to tenth and are now six points outside the play-off spots. In a sense, Sunderland are victims of their own success.
Back in the summer, most fans would have snapped your hand off if they were offered the current situation with 11 games to play. But after such an exciting season, in which the club has challenged in and around the top six for so long, a midtable finish would now be viewed as an anti-climax rather than the perfectly respectable platform on which to build that it would have seemed at the start of the campaign.
The challenge for Tony Mowbray is to find a way to re-ignite Sunderland's season and at least prolong their play-off challenge. It will be a real test for this young squad that has performed so well for so long. No-one knows how they will respond to three defeats in a row because this group of players has not experienced such a run.
And the games are only getting tougher, with Sunderland's next four games pitting them against sides in the top six before the end of March - starting at play-off contenders Norwich next weekend, followed by back-to-back home matches against second-placed Sheffield United and fifth-placed Luton Town, before rounding off the sequence at runaway leaders Burnley. By the end of March, Sunderland will know whether they are still in the top six mix or whether their season will end with them jockeying for position in midtable.
If they are to avoid the latter - or even if they are to end up in upper midtable rather than lower midtable - they will have to defend much better than they managed against Stoke. They were far too easy to play against and Stoke's Will Smallbone ran riot, contributing three assists.
Referee Simpson hardly helped, restarting play after a head injury by handing a drop ball to Stoke when Sunderland had been in possession in midfield, with his error compounded as the Potters immediately swept upfield to score through Josh Laurent just before half-time. That said, Stoke still had to go the length of the field to score, so Sunderland should have defended better, and while Simpson had a role in the first goal, he cannot be held responsible for a 5-1 defeat.
After half-time, a mistake from Dan Neil was punished as Tyrese Campbell added the second goal, and then substitute Luke O'Nien gave the ball away and Campbell was there again to make it 3-0. Alex Pritchard pulled one back just after the hour, but ex-Newcastle striker Dwight Gayle then capitalised on two set-piece situations to add goals four and five for the Potters.
It was a chastening affair, and it was no wonder many fans had seen enough long before the final whistle went.
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