STEVE McCLAREN insists he remains “upbeat” about Newcastle United’s prospects despite their 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Chelsea.

The Magpies tumbled back into the Premier League’s bottom three as they were comprehensively outclassed at Stamford Bridge, with a series of defensive errors contributing to their latest defeat.

There is now an 18-day gap until their next outing at Stoke City, and with all of their relegation rivals due to play in the intervening period, their position could well have worsened by the time they return to action at the Britannia Stadium.

McClaren is determined to maintain a positive approach though, and remains convinced his players will avoid the drop despite their desperately poor display this afternoon.

“During the game, and at half-time, there was a lot of anger and frustration, but that’s already been dispelled and in the cold light of day, we have to be reflective and calm,” said the Newcastle head coach.

“We have to know that there’s 12 games to go. With the quality Chelsea have, they can do that to teams, and they’ve done it to us. But in the first 15 minutes, I thought a lot was self-inflicted.

“We have to learn from that. I’m not particularly upbeat about this result or performance, at all. But I’m determined that we’re going to get that 18 days and make the most of them.

“I’m upbeat about what we’ve got in the dressing room and what they’ve shown, and what they’re capable of doing, and with 12 games to go, we need to show that.”

Newcastle have now suffered six successive away defeats in all competitions, but McClaren denies his side have a deep-rooted problem that rears its head whenever they play on their travels.

“We’ve had four or five games where we’ve not performed, and this was one of them,” he said. “We’ve shot ourselves in the foot, but we’ve always come back and reacted. That’s the key thing, so it’s a case of sitting down and making sure we react.

“We’ve got to dust ourselves down and be realistic, and we can’t let this derail us, as much as people might want it to. We have to stick together in that dressing room, and we have to show character and fight.

“There’s only four or five times in the season that I’ve been disappointed with that, but I think today was more about the opening 15 minutes and giving the ball away and giving them three goals.”