STEVE McCLAREN thinks Newcastle United have no ‘identity’ in the way they play football but he is adamant there is no crisis at St James’ Park.

McClaren is struggling to turn the Magpies around despite almost £50m of investment in the squad and he readily admits he still doesn’t know his best team or system.

And with games against Chelsea and Manchester City scheduled after Wednesday’s Capital One Cup tie with Sheffield Wednesday, it is not inconceivable that Newcastle will be without a win in eight games.

The last time a Newcastle side failed to win any of their opening eight league fixtures was back in 1898/99, so McClaren will be understandably desperate to avoid having that unwanted honour from his first year in charge.

But he knows that avoiding it will be a difficult task in itself after a worrying defeat to 2-1 Watford which has left McClaren still trying to work out what direction to take in terms of team selection and formations.

“Can we be free-flowing? Can we be this or that? What identity have we got? And we are still searching for the best team,” said McClaren. “We are also still searching for the best identity within the personnel we have got here.

“It’s about results and we have to try to find a way of playing. We have to be pragmatic. I don’t think we have an identity yet.”

Yet despite the frustrations, heightened by Odion Ighalo’s double which secured the points for Watford on Saturday, McClaren is still putting a smile on things in the belief that he will get there.

“I have seen enough in those first four games, the attitude and the spirit,” said McClaren. “At times we were a little bit naive in terms of losing our shape and wanting to win things and do things, but there’s enough in that dressing room.

“We have seen enough not to panic and to stay calm. There is no crisis but only we can turn it round. We must keep working.”

The defeat to Watford had all the hallmarks of last season’s frustrations, particularly after the turn of the year when Newcastle almost dropped out of the Premier League.

There was a distinct lack of attacking threat while defensively Watford looked like they could score every time they moved forward with Ighalo and Troy Deeney humiliating the Fabricio Coloccini-led backline.

“We have come in to a new experience and we all think ‘phwoar, let’s go’ and then suddenly it is ‘woah, what’s happening there’,” said McClaren.

“It’s a lot of things to work on. Mentality, history, and of course the present. We have to turn it round. But I still say this is a good squad, with good players in there.

“To win you need belief. That first win would ease a lot of things but there’s a lot of clubs saying that. That adds to the tension and pressure and fuels the criticism we are going to receive.”

He added: “We needed to dominate Ighalo and Deeney but didn’t. The first four games we have had to defend low and be a transition team and picked up a couple of points doing that.

“The last two games we have kind of opened it up, especially on Saturday because we needed to do that and we got caught with the two goals? It’s just not been good enough.”

But McClaren, who is likely to mix things up to try a few things against Sheffield Wednesday, insists he sent out his Newcastle team to press Watford rather than allow them plenty of space to exploit.

He said: “The message is always to start on the front foot especially at home. We have looked at Watford before, tactically they have a very simple game plan.

“You hit Deeney and Ighalo so it is very difficult to press the goalkeeper and centre-half because the ball goes over their heads to those two. In terms of the game tactically, that’s how it was and it is very effective for them. Unfortunately we didn’t deal with it.”