Martin Dubravka hopes to start changing Newcastle’s fortunes for the better by airing some home truths at what promises to be a brutally honest players’ meeting this week.

Rafael Benítez’s side travel to Manchester United on Saturday having collected only two points all season and their Slovakian goalkeeper has initiated what he regards as a potentially watershed get-together.

“I’ve said to Jamaal [Lascelles, Newcastle’s captain] that we need to arrange a meeting with all the players,” Dubravka said in the wake of Newcastle’s bitterly disappointing 2-0 home defeat by Leicester City on Saturday.

“I believe we have enough quality to beat teams like Leicester but we need to change something – we need to analyse everything and be honest with each other. I don’t think we’ve done that until now. If we want to be successful, we need to change. You always have to give 100% because this is the Premier League; so I expect to see us putting in more. We have to react differently to going behind. Sometimes a players’ meeting can help the team.”

With Mike Ashley, the club’s owner, also said to be planning an unexpected, and unprecedented, “clear the air” dinner with Benítez and the first-team squad this week it seems likely a lot of talking will be done on Tyneside in the coming days.

Dubravka has been one of Newcastle’s better performers but several teammates are underacheiving and the former Sparta Prague goalkeeper acknowledges morale is low. After all, Benítez’s side have lost their past four home games, scored four goals all season, never taken the lead, had the fewest shots in the Premier League and failed to assume more than 49% possession in any fixture.

“Confidence is not high right now,” said Dubravka. “We have to sit down, all together and speak about which direction we need to go. We have to go in the same direction, every player. Everybody has to know which kind of system we play. Rafa has told us many times how we should do things but, against Leicester, we were a little bit confused in a few moments and we did not react well.”

Old Trafford is not always the ideal place for bright new dawns and Dubravka knows that, despite José Mourinho’s present travails, Manchester United are unlikely to be pushovers. “It will be a tough game,” he said. “But we have to bring the same attitude as when we beat them [at St James’ Park] last season and do the same things.

“It’s no good just talking about things again and again. … If we want to change, we have to start it off by doing it ourselves. It is down to us, no one else. We need to be honest with each other. Of course, we need to stick together as a team but let’s have this meeting and talk.”

Ashley is sufficiently concerned to have attended the past two matches in person – after an absence of more than a year – and is proposing the bridge‑building dinner. He has met Benítez – who is refusing to extend a contract which runs out in the summer in the wake of the owner’s transfer market parsimony – only three times and had also been engaged in a long-running dispute with the squad over bonuses.

It appears that the contract issue is exerting a debilitating all-round effect. Matt Ritchie looked distinctly unimpressed and asked his manager “What for?” as he walked off following the decision to replace him with fellow winger Jacob Murphy during the Leicester game. Newcastle fans seemed equally puzzled and took the step, hitherto unconsidered, of booing Benítez’s decision.