19 Things We Learned From Steve McClaren's BBC Radio Newcastle Interview

17. Steve Was Not A Fan Of The American Tour

When asked about the American trip, which many have questioned the motives behind, McClaren said:

"We all sat down and said we've got to make the most of it, we've got to deal with what happens, it's not going to be easy. The travelling was gruelling, and we just had to deal with it. "I think along the way, as with all these trips, you get disruptions and you can get on each others' backs, but I think it was a great time for 11 days for us to be completely in each others' pockets and get to know each other very, very well. "We had tough games - I think the most difficult one is the artificial pitch. We didn't mind the schedule so much but we came to the last game and playing on that artificial surface, we had seven or eight players who had a problem playing on that so we couldn't play them. "We kind of lost a week and we've tried to get that back. But we just have to deal with whatever comes along. The players have done that, the staff were excellent, we got through it, we know each other far, far better now than we did two weeks ago because of this trip, and we move on."

As the caller correctly pointed out, why did Newcastle travel half the world away to play on artificial pitches against reserve Major League Soccer sides? What could they have possibly gained from it? They won't play on a plastic pitch this season and the teams they played meant they didn't build their brand across the pond one iota. It was a pointless exercise, even though McClaren rightly pointed out that his players will have got to know each other a lot better by living in one anothers' pockets for a couple of weeks. However, it was largely the same squad as last year with Georginio Wijnaldum joining the party late into the tour, so they couldn't have learnt too much that they already didn't know. We're still scratching our heads about this one...