Steve McClaren has acknowledged that Newcastle United is “not an easy club” to play for but maintains life at St James’ Park is nowhere near as dysfunctional as it sometimes appears.
“It’s not so bonkers when you work inside this place,” said McClaren, who believes first-teamers require courage to perform on Tyneside. “It looks it, though, doesn’t it, from the outside?”
The Newcastle manager’s mood may have been jocular but producing a team capable of performing in front of fiercely partisan 52,000 crowds is proving hard work. Although buoyed by last Sunday’s 2-0 home win against Liverpool, McClaren’s side are still in the bottom three and face a tough game at Tottenham on Sunday.
“It’s not an easy football club, as you and we all know, but that’s the situation we’re in,” said the former England coach, who has had to conform to the often rigid policies imposed by Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner. “I think the players know that and I think the new ones that came in during the summer are adapting to that. I think it can be a culture shock to them but I fully expect us to be stronger in the second half of the season than we’ve been in the first half.”
After beating Liverpool several Newcastle players looked so exhausted they were almost crawling off the pitch. “I’ve got to say it’s what everybody should be doing every week,” said McClaren, who was delighted to see certain individuals finally give everything for the cause.
He denied it was a case of foreign imports not understanding what the club meant to its fans and the wider city. “I don’t think so, no,” said the 54-year-old. “Definitely not. I think everybody knows what Newcastle is about. We show them films about the club and its history. It’s not rocket science – but every club is saying the same thing.”
In McClaren’s case he does not merely have to motivate cocooned millionaire players from sometimes far-flung corners of the globe but ensure they can withstand the pressure of performing in front of such large, sometimes demanding crowds.
“When you cross the while line here and there’s 52,000 people – you’ve got to have some courage to do that. I admire the players for that, for being able to handle it. The reason we’re in the trouble that we’re in is that they haven’t been able to put in a performance week in, week out which the fans expect.”
This problem has been exacerbated by Newcastle’s policy of not signing anyone aged over 26. A consequent lack of leadership and experience has prefaced some awful results in recent weeks and informed McClaren’s decision to omit Aleksandar Mitrovic and Ayoze Pérez, two young strikers, for Liverpool’s visit.
Considering Mitrovic, a Serbia striker, cost £14m when he joined from Anderlecht last summer and Pérez is much coveted, it was a big call. Not to mention the correct one. “One of the reasons we probably got the win was that with Papiss Cissé and Siem de Jong up front the team was a little bit more experienced,” he said, dropping Ashley and the rest of the club’s hierarchy a not so subtle hint.
“With them coming back into the team our average age shot right up. Leading from the front, they actually made a big difference to us in terms of mentality and their experience of the big occasions. We decided to go for a bit of experience in Siem and Papiss and they worked well together.”
