Steve McClaren craves boredom. It is not a state that adrenaline-junkie football managers usually covet but six months in charge of Newcastle United has exhausted his enthusiasm for the sort of extreme highs and mainly lows that Glenn Hoddle once described as “pigs and troughs”.
As he prepared for Saturday evening’s vital home game against Aston Villa, McClaren was asked if he would be prepared to settle for a boring remainder of the season with Newcastle safe in mid-table. “At the present moment that’s not boring me,” he said with real feeling. “Believe you me, that’s not boring me.”
Although two successive wins, against Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, have lifted Newcastle out of the relegation zone they remain in peril and cannot afford to stumble against Rémi Garde’s bottom-placed Villa. “To be clear of the bottom three is very nice,” said the former England coach, who a fortnight ago looked in real danger of being sacked as Newcastle manager. “But no we’re not away from it. We’re still fighting. If we don’t fight, we’ll be back in it.
“Everyone keeps telling me it would be a ‘very Newcastle thing’ to lose to Villa. The players have heard it too and I think we have got the message loud and clear. We will do everything to avoid that happening. But there is no doubt we are facing a very, very dangerous Villa team who have got individuals who are capable of winning football matches. This is a game that is totally different from the last two we have had. A different pressure.”
Newcastle have recently reverted to a much more counterattacking style but such tactics are unlikely to prove the answer at home to Villa, when they are likely to have a considerable amount of possession. “It’s a totally different game,” said McClaren. “You could say that we expected Liverpool to have the ball so we weren’t bothered. Tactically it could be a very interesting game for us. The key could be our front four.”
After deliberately “creating conflict” in Newcastle’s camp following a series of disappointing results, McClaren has been encouraged by the response. Particularly that from Rob Elliot, who has proved an impressive deputy in goal for the injured Tim Krul. “Rob’s turning into a leader,” he said. “Absolutely. At Spurs at half-time [when Newcastle were 1-0 down] he was terrific. And the rest followed on from that. He was saying: ‘Look, let’s not do that, this is what people expect us to do so let’s do this,’ and they responded to him.”
“We have good, talented players here. They’re just learning how to win games - and on Saturday I hope we will learn how to win a different type of match.”
