McClaren won the title with Holland’s FC Twente before moving on to Wolfsburg in Germany, a job he kept for just six months before he was sacked at the start of the year.
Alan Pardew: “He has just come up here to see what we are doing.
"He is an old mate, so it was a personal call.
"Have I picked his brains? Yes, exactly, that's what I have done.
"We are hopefully in the market in the summer and Steve has come across countless players in the last two or three years by working in Europe.
“There are players I have asked him about and it is very important to have that kind of info from him.
“You just want to keep in touch and see what is going on. I asked him what the Dutch league was about, this player and that player. And in Germany too.
“I got some great information from him, and that is purely it.”