Howe's side suffered a crushing 2-1 defeat in the Tyne-Wear derby that saw their local rivals climb above them in the Premier League.

Anthony Gordon gave Newcastle an early lead at an atmospheric St. James' Park after capitalising on an error at the back.

The Magpies looked well placed to avenge their 1-0 defeat to Sunderland in the reverse fixture going into the break. But Sunderland steadily grew into the game and levelled things through Chemsdine Talbi near the hour-mark before the impressive Brian Brobbey provided the hammer blow in injury time.

Boos descended on the Newcastle players at full-time as they fell into the bottom half of the table with just seven games left to play in the season.

"Very, very painful ... most of all, painful for our supporters," Howe told a news conference after the match.

"And they're the ones I think about now. I've got very little to sort of use as an excuse and I don't want to go down that road, never have. I never believed in that method once you haven't performed.

"You know the size of the game and you don't deliver, you expect to be criticized and you understand why. So I understand the reaction at the end of the game. We haven't done our jobs well enough today and we're desperately disappointed in ourselves and I think we have to absorb it.

"The only thing we can do is try and come back stronger from it."

The result capped off a disappointing week for Newcastle following their harrowing 7-2 defeat to Barcelona in the Champions League round-of-16 second leg. With the club already out of the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, Howe's side are likely to end the season without silverware or in the European places.

It's an incredible comedown from last season, where they won the Carabao Cup to end a 70-year trophy drought. That win over Liverpool in the final wrote Howe into Newcastle history books and remains the high point of his tenure that is currently in its fifth year.

When asked about his position, Howe said: "I'm committed. I'm fully committed to the job. I'm disappointed in my delivery today and my delivery [over] the last week.

"The Barcelona game was very tough, today's even tougher. As I said after the Brentford game -- absorb that, blame myself. I don't look to deflect it anywhere. I certainly won't deflect to my players. I protect my players to my last breath. I think that's how I look at it. It's going to be a tough, painful few days for me."

The derby was paused for a few minutes in the second half after Sunderland's Lutsharel Geertruida was reported to have suffered discriminatory abuse. The halt was in line with the Premier League's anti-discriminatory protocol and they announced they will be investigating the matter.

"He looks okay. It's not acceptable and it's important to report and to manage the situation properly," Sunderland boss Régis Le Bris said.

"So he looks okay, but we need to support him."