Hope is the most dangerous emotion that a football club can stir and having dangled promise in front of their supporters at the start of this season, Newcastle United and Sunderland now find that disillusion is rife. For these North East rivals, where potential is limitless and underachievement ingrained, reality rarely keeps pace with yearning, but the fall this time has been particularly severe.

At St James' Park, the difficulties are well known. Appointing an inspirational, demanding and romantic figure such as Kevin Keegan manager provided a club and their city with genuine emotional uplift, but Mike Ashley's subsequent decision-making proved dramatically flawed. Even a rare good one - selling up - has not yet met success.

With any takeover not likely to be completed before February - and there are no guarantees about what might happen then - another season has been consigned to transition. If there was a plan or a purpose, something or someone to latch on to, the mood would be different, but falling attendances are symptomatic of a deeply set malaise.

Newcastle are fourth-bottom of the Barclays Premier League with 15 points from 15 games. As Keegan repeatedly gave warning and Joe Kinnear, his replacement, quickly came to recognise, the first-team squad is too small and yet senior players such as Michael Owen, Nicky Butt, Steve Harper and Shola Ameobi are being permitted to drift towards the end of their contracts.

Kinnear, initially hired on an interim basis, has inherited a political minefield as much as a team, but while he warrants a degree of credit for stabilising the side, he has contributed to the lack of clarity on Tyneside. Statements regarding his own deal or meetings with Ashley have often proved contradictory, although his communication skills appear favourable when compared with his employers.

After Newcastle drew 0-0 with Chelsea on November 22, Kinnear was asked about the resources that Ashley would provide him with during next month's transfer window. “The answer, truthfully, was, 'Keep the money you get for the players you sell and invest it back in the team,'” he said. Yesterday, he stated: “This is definitely not the case. The only reason I would move players out is if they wouldn't be regulars.”

Thankfully, there are some constants. One is the commitment to Newcastle by Shay Given, the goalkeeper. After 11 years at the club, he shares the frustration of fans, but also the loyalty, and he is uninterested in recent speculation linking him with Tottenham Hotspur. “I wouldn't want to leave Newcastle, anyway,” Given said. “I'm very happy where I'm at.”

Does the same apply to Roy Keane, Given's former Ireland team-mate? Sunderland's collapse has been more recent and more sudden than Newcastle's; as recently as late October, when they emerged triumphant from the Wear-Tyne derby, they were proclaiming history, but results since then have been horrific. Losing five of their past six league matches has raised the prospect of relegation and some fundamental questions.

Chief among them are the most basic for any manager: is he motivating his players? Has he “lost” the dressing-room? Is this a crisis of confidence or a loss of faith? Those outside the region may gaze at a club run with dignity and intelligence by Niall Quinn and wonder how things have unravelled. But even in milder times, relationships with Keane have been complex and fractured.

A hardline attitude and unpredictable personality can motivate players, but alienation can follow. Should he wish to take it - and he is expected at this evening's home reserve fixture against Manchester United - Keane will be given the opportunity to arrest the decline, but patience is not unrestricted. After Saturday's visit to Old Trafford, there are pivotal games against West Bromwich Albion, Hull City and Blackburn Rovers.

“We need unity in times like this,” Nyron Nosworthy, the defender, said, but for all the idolatry that Keane has generated over his career, enmity has accompanied it in equal measure.

“It has been apparent to me for that last 18 months that he isn't going to be a serious manager,” Eamon Dunphy, who was the ghost-writer for Keane's autobiography, said. “He has lost the plot - I think the whole project is doomed.”