I remember that season vividly - as it was the Payet/Bilic season.
You could see glimpses of how good Wijnaldum and Sissoko can be, but on the whole, they were nothing like the players that play for Liverpool or the Spurs (or for France in the 2016 EURO, where Sissoko was brilliant).
I still don't know how Newcastle got relegated, they had some quality players (IIRC even a young Thauvin was there), Janmaat, Gigi, Sissoko, Mitrovic, they brought in Shelvey... Dunno. Was gonna say Dwight Gayle, but he was in Palace at the time.
Maybe they just brought in Rafa too late.
I do remember them struggling and being disappointed when we lost the away game 2-1, we were 5th at the time, above Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea (what a f*****g season!), and we just never got going. Think it was still McLaren managing.
Newcastle United 2015/16 was a team that for 28 games out of 38 had simply everything wrong with it.
At the end of 2014/15 the dressing room was variously demoralised and apathetic. In the off-season, the club made four significant signings, all untried in the EPL. Mbemba and Mitrovic were both aged 20; in mental terms the latter was going on eight. Thauvin arrived with reluctance, fresh from being voted biggest disappointment of the previous Ligue 1 season. None of those players were ever likely to add leadership or consistency, nor did they. The two most influential players in the squad were Coloccini and Sissoko. Neither wanted to be there. Coloccini's legs were gone. Sissoko is a human snare for coaches who value physicality over skill and intelligence. Even if both players had been fully committed, these shortcomings would have left them struggling to lead by example.
The balance of the team was non-existent. Mitrovic thrives on crosses, but no one had been signed to provide any. His temperament wasn't suited to lead the line against EPL defences, so taking the sting out of games was nigh-on impossible. The central midfielders for the first half of the season were Tiote, Anita and Colback. You look in vain for playmaking guile or game-breaking skill from that trio. Wijnaldum was initially the number 10, which doesn't quite suit him. McClaren didn't trust Perez, the most intelligent attacker the club had, but Perez suffered anyway for the lack of players on his wavelength. And Perez has never been explosive enough to destroy defences on his own.
In goal, Tim Krul missed more than half the season from injury, leaving the door open for Rob Elliot, a Championship keeper. The fullbacks were Janmaat - unintelligent and only sporadically committed, and Dummett, who at that stage was Championship standard.
Into this mess was thrown Steve McClaren. The players liked him, but didn't respect him a jot. He'd been told by the Ashley regime he was expected to play an attacking style: an unfortunate demand to make of someone who can't structure possession football. And Steve McClaren has always been an example of that classic English coach who, if his team struggles to find a goal, simply urges his players forward in greater numbers, thus giving a passable impersonation of a First World War general, with comparatively futile results.
Shelvey and Townsend, when they arrived, were begged to carry the team. This suited Shelvey's ego, but not his actual level of usefulness or strength of character. All McClaren knew to do with Townsend was to let him run fast upfield in straight lines. The 2-1 win over West Ham you mention was about as good as it got between early January and early March.
Benitez made a big difference, in the same way it makes a difference trying to fly from London to Paris using an aeroplane rather than by leaping off the white cliffs of Dover flapping a pair of home-made cardboard wings. Revealingly, though, even he needed several games to detoxify the players, and only one point was taken from vital back-to-back games against sunderland and Norwich. He was blatantly appointed at least two games too late. The miracle is that the fervour of Newcastle fans encouraged him to continue to work with an owner who would have preferred to keep a far worse manager and considered appointing him an act of last resort.
