McClaren tears into winless Newcastle as pressure mounts for Watford clash

Reports have suggested McClaren could reshuffle his line-up for Saturday’s visit of Watford – as the former England manager seeks to kick-start his debut season with Newcastle.

“The first eight fixtures were a bit of a nightmare for us”, McClaren said referring also to upcoming clashes with champions Chelsea and leaders Manchester City.

McClaren has struggled to turn the club’s fortunes around since being appointed as the successor to John Carver over the summer, picking up just two points from their opening five outings.

Newcastle will be hoping to continue their very good record against Watford. But what is more worrying for the Magpies is that they have failed to score in the league since the St James’ Park draw with Saints.

Steve McClaren has admitted Newcastle are carrying “mental baggage” from last season, and has warned results could get worse.

Newcastle have not helped themselves by having a player sent off in two of their five league games. If we don’t start doing this we can’t win games.

“In a transition period, you will have this”. It takes time (with new players) and sometimes you can take a step forward and two steps back.

“We created a few [chances at West Ham], but compared to previous games we know we need to create more”.

Quique Sanchez Flores: “We respect Newcastle because I know they are a very historical team in the Premier League“.

Watford striker Odion Ighalo has scored 18 goals in 23 league appearances in 2015 – more than any other player in the top four tiers this year.

“We are in the process of building a new team, and with new players in the Premier League, in the process of trying to change things around in a football club, and during that process, it is a little bit like a vehicle crash”.

“You know it is going to happen and you can’t do anything”.

“We have to go back to the way we were playing”, Wijnaldum added.

Casting our eyes towards the bottom right we can see that the fixture computer has given Claudio Ranieri a helping hand in guiding Leicester to a surprise second place in the table.