AS Cheik Tiote ponders bringing an end to his five-and-a-half years on Tyneside, Steve McClaren insists he will not be cashing in on any more of Newcastle United’s best players before the transfer window shuts.

McClaren, the club’s managing director Lee Charnley and chief scout Graham Carr are all exploring ways of adding to the squad. The pursuits of Andros Townsend and Saido Berhaino remain a work in progress.

Tottenham are interested in selling Townsend and have floated the idea of swapping highly-rated Spaniard Ayoze Perez in part-exchange, but McClaren is adamant the forward is going nowhere.

Perez has caught the eye of a number of clubs since his arrival from Tenerife in the summer of 2014, while Napoli have shown an interest in Moussa Sissoko. McClaren, though, claims he will not be moving on his big players before February 1.

“Absolutely (want to keep hold of Perez). We are not losing our best players in this window,” said McClaren. “He has been great. There is a lot more to come. He needs to be more consistent but he has great potential.

“It is his second year. He scored a great goal last week. He needs to score more and get more assists and be more consistent. But he is not going anywhere.”

McClaren went on to insist there had been no firm offers for any players other than Tiote’s proposed £8m switch to Shanghai Shenhua, which is still expected to go through in time. Marseille do remain keen on ending Florian Thauvin’s frustrating stint on Tyneside.

But Newcastle are not the only club looking to strengthen over the next nine days, which is making the recruitment process more difficult with prices for players being hiked.

McClaren said: “Any club will look, ‘Where are we?’ and ‘What do we need to do?’ Some will be in the top two or three and looking to win the championship, so we need this; fifth, sixth, seventh, the Crystal Palaces and the Watfords, people like that, the West Hams, ‘What do we need to kick on and get into Europe?’

“That's what they do at the end of December, evaluate where they are and what they need, what are the ambitions, and of course our ambition is to as quickly as possible climb up the league and get away from the bottom three. In that respect there's probably more urgency there.

“We are happy with the squad at the present moment. We are concentrating on the games. But I think every club will be looking and going, ‘We need some more, I would like this, I would like that’. We will have to wait and see.”

McClaren is not actively pursuing a defender despite a shortage in that area ahead of this afternoon’s trip to Watford. Paul Dummett and Jack Colback have both joined the injury list with hamstring problems, so one of Chancel Mbemba and Jamaal Lascelles will have to play left-back at Vicarage Road.

But Steven Taylor will be on the bench to face the Hornets, so McClaren does not think there is a real need to bring in more defensive reinforcements at this stage. The immediate concern, however, is his selection at Watford.

“We’ve only got the four of them fully fit, with Taylor in the squad,” said the head coach, knowing Taylor has not figured since August 22.

“Dummett we’ve lost, we put Jack there at left-back and he did well and now he’s got a little niggle that he’s had for a few weeks and they’ve been playing every game, so we’ve got to be careful.

“We haven’t got the personnel or the squad to handle that. They’ve played every game and got a lot of niggles. In training, it’s definitely given us a headache as to who plays where at Watford.”

Colback’s absence and Tiote’s pending move to China means Henri Saivet is likely to make his first start at the hub of the midfield since his £4.4m switch from Bordeaux.

McClaren said: “The team was under a lot of pressure last week. We could have shuffled around and not put Henri on, but we trusted him and he did the job. The players that have trained this week have liked him and we like him.”