Beleaguered Newcastle head coach Steve McClaren has ordered his players to come out fighting against Chelsea on Saturday after seeing them humbled by Sheffield Wednesday.
The Owls dumped the Magpies out of the Capital One Cup with a 1-0 victory at St James' Park and in the process, booked themselves a home fourth round tie against Barclays Premier League Arsenal.
But another depressing defeat left McClaren with only three wins in his last 21 games as a manager and his current club with only four in all competitions in 2015, and gave rise to yet another chorus of boos on the final whistle.
Asked how embarrassed he was, the former England boss replied: "I've been in football too long to be embarrassed. Angry, disappointed.
"Things like that can happen in football, we said that beforehand, and yes, it's a very disappointing result and evening for everybody.
"We have said to the players, 'You can't feel sorry for yourselves. You have got to come out on Saturday and be a fighter or a victim', and it's one or the other, and we can only have fighters on there now.
"We say how far do we have to go before we turn it around, because the players are capable of doing that. We can't talk about it, we have to do it.
"There's not a lot you can say. There are no excuses - back in tomorrow morning, Chelsea Saturday, it's the fighting mentality we need."
Lewis McGugan's 76th-minute strike proved the difference between the sides on a night when the Magpies rarely looked like scoring, and the crossbar spared them further punishment twice within seconds as time ran down.
Wednesday boss Carlos Carvalhal was thrilled with the way his much-changed team - only central defender Tom Lees was retained from the 3-2 league victory over Fulham - carried out his instructions to the letter.
He said: "We played very solid, very compact. Tactically, my players were 200 per cent, they played absolutely fantastically. They did exactly what we planned for this match.
"We blocked the way that Newcastle usually play to attack and at the same time, we tried to create problems for the Newcastle defence. We created some problems during the match for the defensive part of the Newcastle team.
"We could have scored a second goal - new had a clear chance to score a second goal - but I think 1-0 is a score that I accept and I think is the correct score because we worked a lot.
"Newcastle had more of the ball, we know, but we picked these players to show a different face in relation to the last three matches. We tried to play more compact, block all the ways for Newcastle and tried with four very quick attackers to disturb Newcastle, so I am very happy, of course.
"I am very happy with the players. They were perfect in the strategy that we brought top this match. They gave 100 per cent to the team and to our strategy, so I am very happy with them."
Carvalhal had sympathy for McClaren, who he is convinced will turn things around on Tyneside.
He said; "I recognise a very good coach, I recognise very good players. It's very easy to recognise - that's why our victory means much more than a normal victory, because we know we beat a very good team with a very good coach in their stadium, so of course we are very happy about that."
Source: PA
