Sound the alarm, push the panic button, prepare for attack, man overboard, sinking ship, put on your life jacket, every man for himself. Yep, that's right, Newcastle United have hurtled straight into an early-season crisis following the 2-1 defeat to Bolton Wanderers on Sunday.
Since the Magpies beat struggling West Ham United at Upton Park in mid-September they have won one game - against Estonia's finest Levadia Tallinn - lost three and drawn one. They have won once at home in the Premiership all season, against another struggling side, Wigan Athletic, back on August 18.
Only bottom club Charlton Athletic have a goal difference worse than a United team which has taken the lead in three successive league games at home and failed to take all three points.
While they may have successfully qualified for the Uefa Cup through the Intertoto Cup, the brutal and harsh reality is that they are going to be competing in European competition with a small squad which finds itself just two points off the relegation zone with seven points from eight games.
According to Graeme Souness you are only ever two defeats away from a crisis as manager at Newcastle United. Roeder will know exactly what his predecessor means at the moment.
There are, to his credit, no Souness-type excuses from Roeder, although the injuries to Michael Owen and Kieron Dyer apart, he does not have a crippling injury list.
What he does have is a weak defence in which every single member has made costly individual errors at some point this season and a threadbare squad because, between chairman Freddie Shepherd and himself, the club did not bring in the number or quality of players they needed to build on the momentum they gained under Roeder last season.
Anybody with only a passing interest in black and white affairs knew the club needed to buy at least two new strikers this summer, preferably with experience of English football, a top-class centre back and a left back. So why did this not happen?
Roeder can only work with what he has got and he is struggling; struggling to get the defence to stop making blunders, struggling to score enough goals and struggling to win enough games. He is struggling because his squad is short on quality and short on confidence in crucial areas.
As things stand, only the midfield can be considered strong enough and versatile enough to belong to a supposed top six club, but there is no point blaming Roeder at a time when he needs everyone to pull together if he is going to have any chance of turning things around.
For everyone who knows what Newcastle United is really about - it's supporters - the defeat at home to a side like Bolton was worrying enough, but you really know you are in danger of a crisis when the attendance at St James's Park is 4,000 below capacity for the first time in more than five years in the Premiership.
Newcastle supporters are the lifeblood of the club, they are the reason the Magpies can compete financially with the other powerhouses in the Premiership and it is their passion, rather than Newcastle's on-the-pitch success, which makes the club famous well beyond these shores.
United fans have a tendency to push the panic button too early and, to be fair, it is stll far too early in the season to write it off. But a home defeat to Fenerbahce in the Uefa Cup on Thursday night and the alarm bells really will be ringing. Lose at Middlesbrough on Sunday and their sound will be deafening.
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