AS Newcastle United prepare to face Alan Pardew for a second time since his departure, one of the players he signed admits he never got the chance to prove his worth under the Crystal Palace boss at St James’ Park.

But while Siem de Jong still rates Pardew highly as a manager, the Dutch forward still thinks the Magpies have the right man to bring brighter times to Tyneside – if the players can start to deliver on a more regular basis.

Newcastle head to Selhurst Park tomorrow and defeat could see them slip back into the Premier League’s relegation zone.

Steve McClaren has only won two of his opening 13 league matches in charge, form which has increased frustrations and tensions on the training ground this week ahead of him going head-to-head with Pardew for the first time as Newcastle’s head coach.

De Jong, a £6m arrival from Ajax in the summer of last year, is yet to begin a league game under McClaren and his only start for the club remains the one which Pardew handed him against Palace in August 2014 before he was struck by a series of injuries.

“I never really played under Pardew either,” said de Jong. “In pre-season I played under him but then I got injured. It was a bit of a strange situation.

"I think Alan Pardew’s a good manager and I think we have a good manager now as well. But we need to be more consistent, we need to put up more of a fight for him.”

Despite Newcastle’s lowly position just above the bottom three, McClaren has overseen a few decent displays but he has also witnessed woeful lapses like the one which ended in a 3-0 defeat to Leicester last weekend.

De Jong said: “I think we had a couple of performances that were pretty good. Against Sunderland, we played a good game until the red card.

"The Bournemouth game wasn't a good game, but we defended quite well in our own box. Before that there were a couple of games that we can build on.

“Sometimes we haven't shown what we can do, and that's disappointing. We know it's possible, but we need to show it every game. We need to be a consistent team.”

One of the biggest frustrations McClaren has found is that he has struggled to find and field a starting line-up he prefers – and that has brought its own problems.

"It's a matter of getting the shape right and getting the team right. I thought we were quite close a couple of weeks ago,” said de Jong.

“We had a good shape, we were defending quite well and we were dangerous in transition. I think we lost the ball (against Leicester) where we could have created something. We were sloppy, especially on transition and that needs to improve.”

McClaren accepts how difficult it will be to leave Selhurst Park with a victory tomorrow, but has carefully examined Sunderland’s success story there last Monday under Sam Allardyce.

Palace struggled to break down Sunderland’s five-man defence even though they had a much larger share of the possession and Newcastle can expect more of the same.

Despite some frank exchange of views with many of his players this week on the training ground over a perceived lack of effort against the Foxes, McClaren is debating whether to give his under-performers one more chance to prove they deserve to stay in the team.

Fabricio Coloccini is one of those under the greatest spotlight, with McClaren more than willing to strip him of the captaincy if he does not see more consistent performances from his skipper at the back.