Nine of the 16 involved on the pitch or on the bench at home to Gillingham last weekend were Alan Pardew acquisitions, and, explaining that a period of change requires patience, he says:
"That is going a little bit unnoticed and this team hadn't had real setbacks before to be honest; Sunderland was our first with this newer squad and even that wasn't a game where we got completely outplayed.
"But the Millwall one was and we had to cope with that quickly and bounce back.
"Hopefully we have learnt from those two games and we don't get ones like them again between now and the end of the season."
Alan was delighted with the response to the defeat at the Den with the win against Gillingham and adds:
"Any win is important and after the Millwall game we got the show back on the road against Gillingham.
"Not too much credit was given to their two strikers but within the game they are recognised as two forwards who can cause a lot of problems, which they did - but I thought we handled them very very well.
"We have had that before at home and it has turned into defeat but it didn't this time; they equalised but we came back and won it, and that is important.
"That setback could have been negative but we kept plugging away and we were dominant throughout the second half, really.
"And for two players to come off the bench as well and affect the game was good for their confidence - so it ended up being a good day.
"It was an important result in terms of going into our next game, and it was the third of a 10 game period which I have said is probably the most important period of the season.
"We have won two and lost one so we go to Reading on the note of just having won a game.
"We had a fantastic response from our fans because after the Millwall game to get 34,000 was a test of their loyalty.
"We couldn't ask any more than what they gave us on Saturday and whatever criticism and frustration they threw at us during the game we expected because of our game at Millwall.
"When you put that sort of performance in then you expect that frustration and you have to have big enough players to deal with it - which I thought we did well on the day.
"In some ways it was a game that could have gone horribly wrong for us because everybody could have got nervous and edgy.
"The players showed a good response all week in training and that was reflected in the game.
"We did have some moments when it didn't go so well but you have them in any game but we coped with those periods quite well, and we didn't switch off."