Eddie Howe accepts the blame for a “very painful” Tyne-Wear derby defeat to Sunderland but says he won’t be walking away from Newcastle United any time soon. The Magpies suffered a second defeat of the season to their bitter rivals after Brian Brobbey’s 90th-minute winner at St James’ Park. Newcastle had taken the lead through Anthony Gordon but his opener was cancelled out by Chemsdine Talbi on the hour mark before Brobbey struck in stoppage time.

It completes a miserable few days for the north east club, who were hammered 7-2 by Barcelona in midweek to exit the Champions League. Howe admitted he “didn’t like” the performance of his players in the second half against Sunderland but took responsibility for their failings. Newcastle have now played 51 matches this season – 18 games more than third-placed Manchester United who the Magpies beat at the start of the month. But the 48-year-old refused to use fatigue as an excuse, and accepted the loud boos he and his team were subjected to at full-time.

He said: “Yeah, very, very painful. Most of all, painful for our supporters. 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, and you know the size of the game, and you don’t deliver, you expect to be criticised, and you understand why.

“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 yeah, I think we have to absorb it. All we can do, the only thing we can do, is try and come back stronger from it.

“You never want to go through that, but I think my first thought as the leader of everything is to front it up, absorb it, act like I would normally act in all moments, and I think that’s really, really important for me. I understand the criticism and expect it, and I’ve got no issue with it.”

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But Howe, now in his fifth season in charge, insists he won’t be walking away from Newcastle. He added: “I’m committed. I’m fully committed to the job. I’m disappointed in my delivery today and my delivery the last week. The Barcelona game was very tough. Today’s even tougher.

“I always, as I said after the Brentford game, absorb that blame myself. I don’t look to deflect it anywhere else. I certainly won’t deflect it to my players. I’ll protect my players until my last breath. And yeah, I think that’s how I look at it. It’s going to be a tough, painful few days for me.”

Asked by Sky Sports if his players were suffering from playing too many games, Howe replied: “I’m reluctant to use that as an excuse. Logic would tell you yes, but we still have to do better. We can’t use that as an excuse because then you’ll never run from them – there’s always an excuse to find.

“We have to really look at ourselves and make sure we learn from all the mistakes we’ve made. And we’ve made a few today. It’s happened to us before, this isn’t a one-off. Yes, in the challenging run we’ve had, there’s been mitigating circumstances, but we’ve still got to find a way to win that game.”

Club legend Alan Shearer ripped into the team on social media. The Premier League’s all-time top goalscorer wrote: “A pathetic, weak, lazy, limp second half from Newcastle again #NEWSUN.”

And Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher also felt that Newcastle were overpowered in the second half. He reacted: “Newcastle just cannot beat Sunderland, what a moment for them, they could not have dreamed about this in the last 10 years and do the double over their fierce rivals, their fans will remember this for some time.

“It was coming in the second half, Newcastle looked absolutely shattered and Sunderland deserved this in the second half. Newcastle could not match them physically in the second half and it was only right that Brobbey got the winning goal.”