However, a 2-0 home win over Liverpool, and Newcastle are now back on track and their head coach is no longer the bookmakers' favourite to be the next top-flight boss to lose his job.
Asked if he just had to live with that, McClaren replied: "Absolutely, get on with it. We all have to live with criticism and in that time, we have to stick together and know that we will come through it.
"We felt three weeks ago we were very nearly coming through it, and perhaps we are now after that win against Liverpool."
"Nobody was happy at this football club. We had lost the last two games and not performed very well, and it's a remarkable turn-around from three weeks ago when we left Bournemouth with smiles on our faces thinking we had turned the corner.
"That's typical of football. Confidence can be eroded and can go as quickly as it comes, and that's what we have got to believe, that the next game is always an opportunity to build a performance, get a result and all of a sudden, then confidence comes flooding back because we have done that at certain times in the season.
"We believe in these players. When these players are confident - and that's the only thing they are lacking at the present moment - they are good players and a good team."