Over on Manchester, David Moyes had to swallow another bitter pill when Everton ended a 21-year draught at Old Trafford by winning 1-0 on Wednesday - but will the Mancs be crying in their beer or up for the fight on Saturday lunchtime?
Alan Pardew had been warned by Mike Ashley that he must steer the team back in the top half of the table, or face the sack, and that certainly gave the manager a kick up the arse.
Newcastle made an impressive run last month beating West Brom, Norwich, Tottenham and Chelsea in a row, although they rode their luck many times to pick up 12 points.
The Red Devils however have been strikingly inconsistent since Sir Alex Ferguson retired and haven't won in the last three games.
With Marouane Fellaini failing to live up to his price tag and Wayne Rooney missing the tie, the Geordies couldn't play the Red Devils at a better time.
Alan Pardew: “For us, we need to make sure we’re at our best and react to the Swansea defeat.
“Our retention of the ball, particularly in the first half, must be better.
“We can’t turn the ball to Manchester United like that. I hope we’ll play a lot better.
“But I don’t think it’s dented our confidence. If we’d had a couple of decisions, we could have taken something from the game.
“It’s fair to say the pressure is on Manchester United for this game.
“There’s extreme motivation for them. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
“I think everybody knew that the first person to follow Alex, it was going to be very, very difficult.
“But he’s a strong man, and I think he can handle it, and there’s a long, long way to go.
“I think they had gone 12 games unbeaten up until that game, so it’s not as if there’s a crisis there.
“They have lost a game, which as I say, anybody can do in the Premier League at the moment.
“Their reaction is going to be a little bit larger than ours, so there’s going to be a little bit of pressure on them and we have got to try to capitalise on that and make it difficult for them.
“If we can do that and get into the last period of the game, we could try to reverse a statistic that isn’t very good of Newcastle winning at Manchester United.”