Howe thought Newcastle had “turned a corner” with a win against Manchester City in November and a more recent four-match unbeaten run, but Sunday’s damaging 1-0 defeat against arch-rivals Sunderland has been a shock to the system.
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Newcastle had a poor performance after Howe sent his team to be compact rather than bold at the Stadium of Light.
They now sit 12th in the Premier League table, having won just one away league game since mid-April, and Howe cut a frustrated figure as he assessed his team’s inconsistency a few days later.
“It’s a horrible feeling because when you go into a game you want your players to go out on the field and give absolutely everything they have in their hearts and minds to get a positive result,” Howe said Tuesday.
“That’s the only thing I ask a player to do. Then I support their abilities once they go out on the field with that mentality to deliver a really good performance.
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“There were a few times this season where I came out of a game not sure about that, and that’s the mentality. That’s knowing that you’re representing yourself and your families when you step onto the field.
“Your job is to do the best you can, and I think we’ve lost a little bit of that, and it’s up to us to try to find a way to get that glue back.”
Using the disappointment of a painful away defeat to bounce back has become a recurring theme for Newcastle this season, following defeats against Brentford, West Ham and Marseille in recent months, and Howe said that is not how he wants his team to operate.
But Newcastle have to bounce back quickly once again when the holders of the Howe Trophy take on Fulham in the Carabao Cup quarter-final at St James’ Park on Wednesday.
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Captain Bruno Guimaraes acknowledged that Newcastle will not be able to truly “put things right” until the next Tyne-Wear derby in March, calling his team’s performance at the weekend a “disaster”.
Howe said talking off the field was “important,” but the head coach emphasized that it “pales in importance next to your willingness to prepare.”
“Bruno’s comments were 90% right initially,” Howe said. “I don’t think we were a disaster. I don’t think the other parts of his original comments were wrong.
“We weren’t a disaster, we were very well organized. We just didn’t achieve the performance we wanted.”
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“Bruno is very emotional and that is part of his success. That is why he is such an outstanding player for us and a leader for us.
“It’s about making sure our messages are right for the outside world. The current mentality is that we can’t affect the past, we can only affect the future. We need to do it today.”
Newcastle will have to do so without influential defender Dan Burn, who will be out for four to six weeks after breaking a rib and punctured a lung in the derby.