Newcastle boss Steve McClaren admits confidence low at St James'

Newcastle boss Steve McClaren admits his players' confidence is low but insists they can kickstart their season against Liverpool on Sunday.

'Confidence' was clearly on McClaren's mind in Thursday's news conference - he mentioned the word 18 times, seven of those in his opening answer.

United are second from bottom of the Premier League and in their last two games they have suffered a 3-0 home defeat to Leicester and a 5-1 thrashing at Crystal Palace.

And the former England boss admits their lack of consistency this season has been hugely frustrating.

"Nobody is happy at this football club," he said. "We've lost the last two games and not performed very well. It's a remarkable turnaround. We had turned the corner. But confidence can be eroded as quickly as it comes."

Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool are their next opponents, and the Reds go into the game as England's form club, fresh from a stunning 6-1 victory at Southampton in the Capital One Cup on Wednesday night.

And McClaren says fans should not be surprised if his side perform well.

"That's what we've got to believe - that the next game is an opportunity to build a performance and get a result," he said. "All of a sudden the confidence comes flooding back. We've done that at certain times in the season. We did it after Watford, Sheffield Wednesday - it was poor. But Chelsea [a 2-2 draw]… what a response.

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"We came back from the international break… Norwich, won 6-2 and you saw the confidence. Now we've had two poor performances and results.

"We believe in these players. Confidence is very fragile. But a result and a performance... it's an opportunity on Sunday to get that and build the confidence. When they are not confident they don't play very well. When they are confident they are good players, a good team."

McClaren said it was not character or desire his team lacks, but experience.  

"People question it. It appears that way," he said. "But these are young players. This is what they are going through. This is an experience they have to go through, that bit of adversity at a big club.

"We felt we'd done it. But we've gone three steps forwards and five or six back. We've got to claw our way back again. That comes from within, from each other and generally it comes from good performances.

"We know where we are, we know the position we are in and we know how many games to go. But it's about Sunday. That's the next opportunity."