There will be more bumps in the road but when does enough become enough?

SO - big gulp - here we go again. Newcastle v Everton Mark II. Same opposition, different venue, different competition.

Oh dear. Can we take much more? We are getting car sickness with all the bumps in the road!

Truth is United are being butchered by average sides not Champions League sides. The latest away results - cuffed 4-1 at Leeds, 4-1 at Coventry, and 3-1 at Everton. Only a 2-0 victory at Crystal Palace, who were beyond shocking, has punctured abject disaster. And that was brought about by a 10-minute spell after a dreadful first half.

This is alarm bells loud enough to guarantee deafness. What happens when the quality teams come along?

Next we have to face our latest tormentors again with everyone in the stocks. No room left. All vacancies taken from Matthias Jaissle to his shell shocked players for whom we splashed out millions of pounds. But others ought to join them, those off the battlefield who plan the club's transfer strategy with such devastating lack of impact.

The players collectively are simply not good enough but the manager cannot merely blame individual mistakes as though all the chaos has nothing to do with him. He devises tactics and leads the troops. The commander is always in the firing line. As I say, everyone must accept their slice of an uneatable cake.

United are like a Vegas gambler, chancers going for broke at a huge risk. Having backed a stringent youth policy in the transfer market ignoring the need for experience in a ruthless Premier League, Jaissle is risking all on a tactical formation which requires athletic supremacy and endless energy. Admirable when all parts are working. Get it wrong and punishment awaits as certain as night follows day.

A record 7,732 Geordie fans poured into Everton's new ground to loyally support the team in their favourite competition but long before the end a significant number had walked out. That alone speaks volumes. United supporters normally don't do that.

The Carabao Cup has produced two Wembley finals including a spectacular victory and here beating an honest but average side would have brought League Two strugglers Fleetwood Town into opposition to make the semi-finals but instead abject surrender was the order of the day.

Let us be truthful. Everton are dour - honest, wholehearted and organised but dour. They don't score goals. At least normally. Against us they were offered up gifts.

The first time we face Premier League opposition we lose. Individual clangers cost us big time. Again and again with no sign of the wrongs being righted.

Everton are beatable in the league up here no doubt. But how consoling would that be when it comes to the overall picture? How many steps have we taken backwards? Certainly more than Michael Jackson on his moon walk.

Of course things have changed - but had they to change? We weren't skint. We simply couldn't hold onto our top players because they sensed a lack of previous ambition not because we were forced to sell with financial restrictions. The manager quit exhausted and disillusioned, and we bought bairns in a new brainwave meant to safeguard and enhance our future. It was a gamble which was never going to improve us in the short term.

Still, we move on because we have to but a door to possible silverware has been slammed in our face. Only the FA Cup remains because the PL is a fight not to get sucked into a relegation struggle rather than a punt at Champions League qualification.

Whatever we do at home a shocking tendency to leak goals away guarantees little progress.

I hope everyone looks at themselves because Christmas hasn't arrived yet and we're twitching like a fried egg. Of course there was always going to be bumps in the road with such a recruitment philosophy but so many so often? Four defeats in our last six matches.

Questions have to be answered positively from the ability of a new young, inexperienced manager trying to turn it round to young players not yet up to standard, too many older players on the wrong side of the hill, and a transfer policy brave to the point of suicidal.

I will repeat what I have said so often, of course we want it all to turn out brilliantly because this is our club from cradle to grave but such loyalty and devotion should not bring a presumption among the hierarchy of blindness to the what is obvious to all eyes.

May bold and positive action built not just on faith but shrewd reason rescue a growing concern. Can the alarm bells be heard as far away as Saudi Arabia?

It will take more than a single victory to muffle them. What is required is a clear reason to hope rather than a gambler's throw of the dice.