In the end, they went peacefully, which is as much as you would wish for anyone who has suffered as Newcastle United and their supporters have over the course of a calamitous campaign. There was no great drama, no agonising twist of fate, merely a meek acceptance that their time was up and a quiet refusal of the lifeline that had been offered by events on Humberside.

A season that began with a valiant draw against Manchester United at Old Trafford ended with a whimper at Villa Park and with the grim prospect of away trips to Doncaster, Scunthorpe, Peterborough and Plymouth. It is a scenario that might once have moved the Geordie hordes to tears, but, while the odd few blubbed obligingly for the cameras yesterday, most recognised, as Alan Shearer did, that the damage had been done over the course of the season and that this, a lame defeat in the sunshine when even a draw would have kept them up, was merely the last straw. When it came to it, not even Shearer could save Newcastle from themselves. In fact, a record of one win in eight Barclays Premier League games in charge suggests that he was not exactly the Messiah they had in mind when he answered their SOS call on April Fool’s Day.

With the benefit of hindsight, six points were all they needed from those eight matches, such was Hull City’s freefall, but, from the moment that Damien Duff unwittingly diverted Gareth Barry’s mis-hit shot into his own net seven minutes before half-time, Newcastle looked desperate to be put out of their misery. Their players, few of whom will be around to put things right next season, evidently felt that they had suffered enough.

There are, Shearer said, “a million reasons” why Newcastle have been relegated from a Premier League in which Hull and Sunderland had seemed to lack the guts to survive in recent weeks. The supporters’ ire will be directed primarily at the boardroom – at Mike Ashley, the owner, and at the previous board, which began the trend for witless decision-making, crass mismanagement and baffling appointments – but, when it came to the club’s day of reckoning, the players were as guilty as anyone for failing to show any desire to embrace the opportunity that was there to be taken.

Aston Villa, with one win in their previous 15 matches in all competitions, were hardly the most fearsome of opponents, but Newcastle never looked as if they believed they were going to stay up. There was a two-minute flurry early in the first half, when Duff hit a shot that caused Brad Friedel difficulty, Obafemi Martins lashed a volley just over the crossbar and Steven Taylor had an effort cleared off the line by Carlos Cuéllar.

However, that really was as much as they produced until the final minutes of the game, when Shola Ameobi missed the target with a couple of efforts, none of which could be described as a clear opportunity. By the time David Edgar was sent off deep into stoppage time, for a second desperate tug on Ashley Young, they had given up.

It was incredible to see a team content to go through the motions on a day when the need was for action. Footballers are cynical creatures and some have been known to try to disguise their shortcomings by transparent little gestures – sprinting to get the ball when it has gone out of play, clattering into opponents, whipping the crowd into a frenzy – but nobody even went that far. It was lethargic, it was abject, it was pitiful and yet still Fabricio Coloccini, Michael Owen and the rest were applauded by the supporters as they trudged off the field. “We’ll support you evermore,” one banner read and of course it is true.

Shearer, as he ruefully admitted afterwards, “came here expecting to turn things around”, but he quickly discovered on arrival at St James’ Park that the cupboard was bare: empty, certainly, when it came to courage, conviction, desire and all the things that a team need when fighting against relegation.

Initially he pinned his hopes on Owen, but, having found his former England teammate to be a shadow of his former self, he dropped him. Owen was fit only to play for 24 minutes as a substitute yesterday and, if some were tempted to believe that it was fate that he would end his four miserable years at Newcastle by scoring the goal that kept them up, it quickly became clear that there was to be no salvation.

Newcastle never looked up for it. If you had been told that one of these teams was fighting for survival, you would have thought it was Villa. Gabriel Agbonlahor had Coloccini in a spin from the very start, while Gareth Barry, in what may be his final game for the club, took every opportunity to get forward, even if there was something almost apologetic about his celebration as his shot deflected in off the unfortunate Duff.

The odd sarcastic banner and a gleeful rendition of “We’ll meet again” aside, Villa Park did not revel too heartily in Newcastle’s misery. It is sad to see a club relegated and sadder still to see them accept their fate without even a hint of a fight. There has been something tragicomic about Newcastle’s downfall over the past five years, but here there was nothing at all – and that is what is most disturbing of all as they look to rebuild in the Coca-Cola Championship.

Aston Villa (4-4-2): B Friedel 5 C Gardner 6 C Davies 6 C Cuéllar 7 N Shorey 6 J Milner 7 S Petrov 7 G Barry 8 A Young 7 J Carew 7 G Agbonlahor 7 Substitutes: E Heskey (for Gardner, 76min), N Reo-Coker (for Petrov, 84), S Sidwell (for Carew, 89). Not used: B Guzan, Z Knight, M Albrighton, N Delfouneso.

Newcastle (4-4-2): S Harper 5 D Edgar 4 S Taylor 5 F Coloccini 4 D Duff 6 D Guthrie 5 N Butt 6 K Nolan 5 P Lovenkrands 4 O Martins 5 M Viduka 5 Substitutes: J Enrique 4 (for Lovenkrands, 57min), M Owen 4 (for Nolan, 66), F Ameobi (for Viduka, 75). Not used: T Krul, R Taylor, A Smith, J Gutiérrez.

Referee C Foy Attendance 42,585

Bill Edgar’s players of the season

Aston Villa Ashley Young

For much of the season he caused danger with almost every one of his trademark inswinging crosses from the left wing.

Newcastle United Shay Given

A weekly heroic saviour in goal before he finally grew tired of the Newcastle circus and joined Manchester City in February.