Alan Pardew is convinced his shell-shocked Newcastle players will be stronger for the experience once they have emerged from the storm in which they are currently engulfed.
The Magpies travel to Swansea on Saturday without a win in their opening six Barclays Premier League games of the campaign and with their manager facing concerted calls for his departure.
However, the 53-year-old believes there is the character within the dressing room not only to cope with a difficult situation, but to use it as a building block in the development of a new-look team.
Pardew said: "The characters grow, the characters will grow as we go along.
"This is a difficult club to play for, I think. It can be the greatest club in the world to play for when you are winning, but we are not winning, so it becomes even harder to play for us, and we need to make sure we can handle that.
"These players are going to learn more in the next six weeks, probably, than they have for the last two years of their careers."
Even the most opinionated of Newcastle fans have largely been able to compartmentalise their support for the team and their distaste for Pardew and owner Mike Ashley over the years, but for a growing section, patience has now run out.
The manager has been subjected to sustained criticism before, during and after recent games, and he admits that cannot have gone unnoticed by the players.
He said: "It's something you can't disguise from them. Initially this season, the third or fourth game in prior to Southampton, I could shield them to a degree, and I was trying to shield them from the pressure that was coming on me.
"But I think it's too late now. The pressure is going to come through the team, it's coming through the staff, it's coming into the training ground, so although it is signalled on me, of course the whole squad is feeling it.
"It's really important for us on Saturday that we give a performance that gets us clapped off at the end, even if it isn't good enough. I think that's what we have got to look for on Saturday.
"That will be my hope, that our fans clap our players off."
Pardew's squad underwent significant change during the summer and the likes of Remy Cabella and Emmanuel Riviere, who have been thrown in at the deep end, have struggled to adapt during the early weeks of the campaign.
Their lack of Premier League experience, coupled with the club's failure to land a proven striker, have led some to call into question the club's well-known transfer policy, although the manager insists that is unfair.
He said: "The way players are brought in, it's obviously a process that we go through, but the model is to buy younger players, and that makes it difficult if you are not winning.
"This is the first season we have brought in new players again and not won. Every time I have been here, we have got off to a good start and it helps players bed in quickly.
"We have produced some fantastic signings at this football club - I don't think anyone would deny that - so we can't suddenly say we have got it all wrong and this is the wrong model and these are the wrong players.
"We have got to give them time, and it hasn't helped, the fact that we haven't won. But we haven't got time to wait for players to come through. We need that to happen now.
"Remy Cabella has got to start performing now, our younger players like Sammy [Ameobi] and [Paul] Dummett have got to deliver now. We aren't hanging about anymore. You have to deliver now.
"But that might not be a bad thing. If we were in this position with six games to go, I'd be worried. We've got a lot of games to go and we're getting battle-hardened."
Source: PA
