STEVE McCLAREN remains confident of making further additions before the transfer window closes at the start of next month following a series of productive meetings with Mike Ashley and Lee Charnley in the last seven days.

Newcastle have spent more than £34m on the purchase of Georginio Wijnaldum, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Chancel Mbemba since the end of last season, but McClaren would ideally like to make another couple of signings in the final two weeks before the transfer deadline.

The Magpies retain a long-standing interest in QPR striker Charlie Austin, although remain adamant they will not match the London club’s £15m valuation of the striker, and are also pondering a formal approach for versatile Leeds United defender Sam Byram.

Mehdi Abeid is set to leave Tyneside to join Greek side Panathinaikos, and while McClaren has been focusing his attention in the last 48 hours on preparing his side for today’s game at Swansea City, he is aware of the potential for a busy end to the month.

“I met the owner last week and he reiterated that he’s taking a back seat,” said the Newcastle head coach. “Lee’s taking charge and we’re working well together.

“He’s saying that it’s my job to tell him, ‘We need this or we need that to improve the squad’, and we’re communicating a lot with Graham Carr (chief scout).

“We’ve done that every week. We’ve been patient, and we’ve got three in. Will there be any more? I don’t know. But are we pursuing? Are we looking? Of course we are.

“We’re always looking to improve our team and squad. I can’t tell you anything concrete at this stage, but as everyone knows, things can happen in the next two weeks.”

In the short term, McClaren is looking to complete the final two signings that will round off his summer spending, and continue to bed in the three players who have arrived this summer.

Looking further ahead, however, the former England boss is also determined to improve Newcastle’s wretched recent record for bringing players through from their academy.

Last weekend, Jack Colback was the only English player in the Magpies’ starting line-up – no Premier League team had fewer domestic starters – and while the midfielder was a boyhood Newcastle fan, his early days were spent in Sunderland’s Academy of Light rather than at his current club’s training ground.

Paul Dummett, Rolando Aarons, Sammy Ameobi and Adam Armstrong are all academy products who were involved in the first team last season, but you have to go back to Andy Carroll to find the last time a player emerged from Newcastle’s youth set-up to make a major impact at senior level.

During his time at Middlesbrough, McClaren developed a reputation for nurturing young talent, and he famously signed off his spell on Teesside by fielding a team containing 11 English players, ten of whom were born within a 30-mile radius of Boro’s training ground at Rockliffe Park.

He does not expect to be doing something similar at Newcastle, but accepts there is a need to start producing a core of home-grown talent that can eventually form an integral part of the first-team group.

“We are very aware of the need for young English players coming through,” he said. “That’s one of the things I have discussed with Lee in terms of providing the platform we need in the scouting and recruitment system.

“In a few years, you’ll have to have more home-grown players, and in the long term we’ll need young English players coming through.

“It’s something we need to address once this window is closed because I haven’t really had chance to assess the academy yet. We’ve had some young players in (training with the first team), but the last few weeks have been so intense.

“But we know that in the squad systems that are coming up in a year, two years, three years, we will need home-grown players. It’s an area we’ve talked about, and that we must address.”

For now, McClaren is focusing on today’s trip to the Liberty Stadium to take on a Swansea side that matched Chelsea as they claimed a 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge last weekend.

Newcastle claimed an opening-weekend draw of their own thanks to an accomplished display against Southampton, and McClaren is expected to stick with the same side that started against the Saints.

That will mean Papiss Cisse continuing in attack, and with the Senegal international seemingly set to remain on Tyneside despite considerable speculation over his future at the start of the summer, McClaren is looking forward to seeing him back to his best.

“We’re very lucky to have had Cisse during pre-season,” he said. “He’s not missed a training session, done very well, and he scores goals. At the moment, he’s the man in possession, and that has allowed us to bring Mitro (Aleksandar Mitrovic) through and not throw him in at the deep end.”