The Magpies fine run of form was brought to a shuddering halt, as Walter Zenga's men outplayed them in both a physical and tactical sense.
The St James' Park faithful became restless quickly as Newcastle were second best in every department, and Benitez told nufc.co.uk how his side's slow start to the game proved costly:
"To be fair, I was not expecting to start the game in the way that we started. Sometimes you can expect you will make mistakes or it will be a bad game or you will have maybe bad luck. But we started the game making mistake after mistake and after the own goal, it was even worse because it was at a time when we had more control."
Newcastle have an immediate chance to make amends after yesterday's poor showing, when they once again host Wolves, but this time in the EFL Cup, and will be looking to avenge their league defeat.
In the Championship, is is vitally important to put a bad performance behind you as quickly as possible, and Benitez highlighted how Tuesday's game will provide an ideal opportunity to get back to winning ways:
"The good thing when you have another game soon is that you can try to do things in the same way that you were doing before. This is the league, the next one will be the cup competition.We are not very happy now and we have to concentrate on the next game and try to do things in the same way that we did before."