They say those who fail to pay heed to history are doomed to make the same mistakes.
Newcastle United, it seems, are one of those clubs who never learn.
The season is only just starting to settle down, but the view from the relegation places in the Premier League is familiarly bleak.
Already Steve McClaren complains he has a team without a discernible identity. It lacks leadership, quality and cohesion.
Results have been poor and with matches against Chelsea and Manchester City to come, they are extremely unlikely to improve.
If they do not take subsequent advantage of theoretically easier fixtures against Norwich, Sunderland and Stoke, they will arrive at Bournemouth on November 7, for a BT Sport live game, in full blown crisis.
The mood has been set. Little things which would evoke a wry smile in easier times, like Newcastle players turning up for matches in tuxedos, are now branded a “disgrace.”
The fundamental problem, a system which cedes too much power to head of recruitment Graham Carr and managing director Lee Charnley, has not been addressed.
Far too few of the 14 players signed in the last three transfer windows have made an appreciable impact. Important policy decisions, like giving Fabricio Coloccini a new contract, have been flawed.
Coloccini’s desire to leave, despite the responsibilities of captaincy, was an open secret. It was also hardly uncommon.
Cheick Tiote, invisible where he was once influential, does not bother to disguise his alienation. Moussa Sissoko gives every impression of still pining for the big money move to Arsenal which might have been best for all parties.
Pappis Cisse, nominally second striker in a team which has scored only 14 goals in its last 21 Premier League games, may very well be past his sell-by date.
The bolder decision, to allow McClaren to oversee the cleansing of a notoriously difficult dressing room over the summer, has been shirked because it didn’t fit the strategy.
He is an accomplished training ground coach, hamstrung by his inability to influence a transfer policy which insists on the recruitment of young foreign players with appreciable sell-on potential.
Newcastle were warned about the febrile temperament of striker Aleksandar Mitrovic, who has announced himself as a red card waiting to happen.
Even Georginio Wijnaldum, by common consent one of the best of a new generation of technically adept Dutch players, is showing signs of succumbing quickly to the mood of doubt and discord.
McClaren admits the mental scars of last season, when Newcastle survived on the last day following a club record run of eight straight defeats, are still vivid.
If they don’t heal soon, he is in a heap of trouble.
