AWFUL performances, injury crises, evidence of a flawed transfer policy and accusations of a poisonous dressing room - it hasn’t taken long for Steve McClaren to experience the full effect of what passes for a managerial in-tray at Newcastle United.

Tonight’s Capital One Cup third-round tie with Sheffield Wednesday should represent a glorious opportunity for a club that has strenuously sought to underline its new-found respect for the cup competitions, but instead, after a wretched start to the season, it feels like a trap that has to be avoided.

Yesterday, as he addressed the media at Newcastle’s Benton training ground, McClaren found himself attempting to douse fires at every turn. Already, after just three months in his post, you sense he has accepted it is an integral part of his job description.

His most strenuous comments came in reply to claims made on Sky Sports’ Sunday Supplement that Chieck Tiote was one of two or three “bad eggs” in the Magpies’ dressing room who were “spreading poison” and damaging the club from within.

Tiote, who returned to full training yesterday but is still to make a senior appearance this season, was accused of playing on his fitness concerns in order to remain on the sidelines, but McClaren is adamant that nothing could be further from the truth.

“There’s been no problem with Cheick,” said the Newcastle head coach. “He’s not a bad egg at all. I know Cheick well, I obviously had him at Twente, and he’s no trouble. He doesn’t cause trouble, he just wants to play.

“We haven’t seen enough of Cheick, but he went away for the Africa Cup of Nations and I don’t really think he’s played a game since. That’s an ongoing problem he has, and he needs to be right to play. He hasn’t been right or correct, it’s as simple as that.

“He hasn’t been able to build up his fitness, but I know Cheick well and I couldn’t be any stronger in terms of saying that he’s not any trouble. He’s no bad egg – he just wants to play football. But he’s not been able to do that, so he’s frustrated. He’s definitely not been feigning injury.”

Nevertheless, within senior circles at St James’ Park there is an acceptance that as well as spending more than £50m on the recruitment of new players this summer, the club should have done more to move on some of the senior names who contributed to last season’s slide down the table.

Tiote’s position was questioned repeatedly during the summer, yet he remains part of the squad. The same can be said of Fabricio Coloccini and Papiss Cisse, both of whom turned in seriously compromised displays during last weekend’s home defeat to Watford.

Clearly, you can only sell if someone wants to buy, but Crystal Palace were willing to take Coloccini, and the decision to not only retain the Argentinian, but also to offer him a contract extension and allow him to retain the captain’s armband, looks increasingly misguided.

McClaren will meet fellow board members Lee Charnley and Graham Carr next month to assess this summer’s transfer business and look ahead to the January window, and as well as discussing potential sales, the issue of signing players with more experience of the Premier League is also likely to be high on the agenda.

“Right from the first day, we’ve talked about it not being just one window, and the next three windows all being very important,” said McClaren. “With the start, people will obviously criticise the first window, but the people we’ve signed in that first window are all good players.

“They need time to adapt to the Premier League, but we know that January is coming up and it will be important. We talked as a club with Lee and Graham, and said we were going to review the window in a couple of weeks, and the position in January.

“We’ve said we were going to do that from day one. We always knew the three windows were going to be very important.  How important? We’ll know more in two or three months time.”

It would help if McClaren could get his first-choice team on the pitch, but instead the injury problems continue to mount. Cisse, Massadio Haidara and Jack Colback are all expected to miss tonight’s game, while Steven Taylor has been ruled out for two months after he was forced to undergo surgery to treat a hamstring problem.

“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 a few issues to contend with at the moment.”

All of which hardly creates the ideal environment in which to be taking on a Championship side who have gradually found their feet since splashing the cash at the end of the transfer window.

Newcastle’s only win this season came in the League Cup second round against Northampton, and it has not escaped McClaren’s attention that the club can only boast four wins in any competition since the start of the calendar year.

“I think there were four points from the first eight games last season, then a terrific run of six wins,” he said. “There were four points in the next seven games, then we hit 2015 and there’s been three wins in 25 games. That tells you it’s not building a lot of confidence or belief.”

Newcastle (possible): Darlow; Janmaat, Coloccini, Williamson, Lascelles; Anita, Sissoko; Obertan, de Jong, Thauvin; Perez.