Newcastle United head coach Steve McClaren has admitted that he was surprised to hear boos from sections of the St James’ Park crowd following the Magpies’ 1-1 draw with Aston Villa on Saturday.
Newcastle headed into the game full of vigour after magnificent back-to-back victories over Liverpool and Spurs, however, treacherous weather conditions and a failure to convert a number of gilt-edged opportunities meant that the Magpies could only muster a draw against Remi Garde’s men.
The point was enough to keep Newcastle out of the Premier League relegation zone heading into this weekend’s boxing day showdown with Everton, but sections of the Toon Army still voiced their displeasure at the team’s inability to put bottom placed Villa to the sword.
When asked whether he was surprised by the muted boos that followed the final whistle of Saturday’s game, McClaren told the Shields Gazette:
“Yes, I was.
“They know when their team doesn’t try, doesn’t put the effort in, doesn’t show attitude and doesn’t want to win the game.
But we were going forward at the end. We opened the game up, put a wide player (Florian Thauvin) on for a defensive player (Vurnon Anita), and wanted to win the game and went for the game, so I was a little surprised.
“But you know you are always going to get that in football, and you can’t satisfy everybody.”
McClaren believes that the emotions of the Newcastle crowd have been effected by the Magpies’ largely wretched form throughout a miserable 2015, and the 54-year-old hopes that his side can begin to get the home fans back on their side with their performances over the coming weeks:
“We have to overcome the emotional fragility of the crowd.
“I thought we did that to a large extent as we did against Tottenham and in the previous two games.
We are trying to convince them to fight, come through it and see what you can do, and conditions were really poor to play good football, which is what we like to do, and the players did well in it, I thought.
