AS if their dreadful start to the season was not bad enough, Newcastle United are also battling against a mounting injury crisis ahead of tomorrow’s Capital One Cup third-round tie with Sheffield Wednesday.

Massadio Haidara, Jack Colback and Papiss Cisse are all expected to be unavailable for the visit of the Owls, while Steven Taylor faces another two months of the sidelines after undergoing surgery to repair a hamstring tendon injury.

Taylor is unlikely to return before the end of November, leaving Newcastle with just Mike Williamson and Jamaal Lascelles to provide centre-half competition to new signing Chancel Mbemba and the out-of-form Fabricio Coloccini.

Haidara is having a scan later this afternoon to ascertain the full extent of his knee injury, while Cisse and Colback are both nursing knocks that will keep them out of tomorrow’s game.

With Paul Dummett and Cheick Tiote also unavailable as they gradually return to full fitness, Steve McClaren will have to be creative as he selects a side for a game that assumed added importance when Newcastle crashed to a 2-1 home defeat to Watford at the weekend.

“Taylor had a scan on his hamstring, the tendon, he had an issue,” said McClaren. “He’s had a small operation to knit the tendon together, so it’s a blow because he’ll be out for a couple of months.

“We have one or two knocks to contend with. Haidara and Colback have a few issues, and Cisse is on the treatment table too. Tiote is back training, but it’s been his first day back out on the grass. We have a few issues to contend with, but we’ll certainly be putting a team out that wants to win the game.”

McClaren had always intended to make changes for tomorrow’s League Cup tie, but in the wake of Saturday’s dispiriting defeat to Watford, he has been heartened by the number of senior players who have approached him and requested to take part in the game.

“It’s a massive game for us, there’s no two ways about it,” he said. “But the reaction from the players has been good. Four or five have come to me and said, ‘I don’t want a rest, I don’t need a rest – I want to play’. That is the type of character that will get us winning games.”

The Magpies have been criticised from a number of quarters in the wake of last weekend’s defeat, and while McClaren does not agree with everything that has been said and written about the club, he accepts he cannot really complain until his side start performing on the pitch.

“As usual, there have been some interesting comments,” he said. “Some are valid, some are not. I respect the people who are criticising, but we know what is going on. We don’t need to be told.

“We know what we have to do, and we know the solutions, but the big thing is that we are trying to turn around a club that had to win to stay up in the last game of last season. There is bound to be baggage.

“We have to turn around the belief. In the first four games, they showed fantastic spirit, but in the last two games, we have conceded goals and not come back from that and the reaction has not been right.

“That is about belief, and a bit of, ‘Oh, here we go again’. We have talked about it and addressed it, and now we have to put up a reaction.”