Steve McClaren knows he must hold his nerve, keep the faith and remain patient.Newcastle United may be stuck in the relegation zone but recent weeks have seen their manager’s efforts on the training pitches transposed into some increasingly attractive performances.
Bad luck has distorted certain results – McClaren’s team did not deserve to lose at Sunderland and, on another day, would surely have beaten Stoke City – but the 54-year-old accepts that, ultimately, he will be judged on points accrued.
Despite assorted, and legitimate, mitigating factors, one Premier League win all season – 6-2 at home to Norwich City – is not good enough and the former England coach appears suitably anxious to translate potential into another victory at Bournemouth on Saturday. Otherwise morale will become ever harder to sustain.
“Sometimes in football you just have to believe – and we do believe,” he said. “We think we’re going in the right direction now and we have to maintain that confidence and that belief but it’s about getting results. To keep that belief going you eventually need wins. We hope they will come.”
Newcastle’s relentlessly disappointing results should be seen in the context of their manager’s attempts to transform them from a direct pragmatic, counterattacking unit into a more attractive, attacking and possession-based side built on controlled passing interspersed with rapid changes of pace.