Kinnear opted not to stamp his authority on the club by cancelling the players’ off-days and hauling those who featured in the 2-1 defeat by Blackburn into training and instead limited himself to chatting with his coaching staff.
Just a handful of senior players such as Joey Barton and Danny Guthrie were put through their paces by first-team coach Chris Hughton at Darsley Park, the club’s multi-million pound training facility, while academy director Richard Money supervised the reserves.
Kinnear, who headed back to London following Saturday’s match, and the likes of Michael Owen were conspicuously absent from the practice ground according to onlookers with preparations for Sunday’s visit to Everton due to get under way in earnest on Tuesday.
The build-up will begin with a post mortem of the defeat by Rovers that left Newcastle second-bottom of the Premier League.
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“We will sit down and go back through the tape and we will explain things,” Kinnear said. “We will put them right back on the training pitch and demonstrate how to work as a unit. I have been over to watch Arsene Wenger training Arsenal on numerous occasions and that shows that even there everything is done on the training pitch.”
Looking ahead to the Everton game, Kinnear added: “The minimum requirement is to get a result, lift everyone and play as a team, and be committed. I would dearly love to have a lot of the key players who are injured back. After the second half performance against Blackburn and having spent a week with them we will be OK.”
Kinnear, who was due to watch Newcastle’s second string in action against Blackburn on Monday night, will also be brought up to date on the club’s injury woes but has been led to believe that Australian striker Mark Viduka’s Achilles problem is a “very long-term one”.
Viduka, 32, is due to return to his homeland this week for specialist treatment in a bid to cure the Achilles tendon damage that is believed to be threatening his career. He will see specialists at the Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre in Melbourne before linking up with the national squad in Brisbane for further treatment.
Meanwhile, Blackburn centre-half Ryan Nelsen has had a dig at Owen, the Newcastle captain, over the challenge that resulted in a penalty for the England striker at St James’ Park.
“I did touch Owen but he fell down very easily,” Nelsen said. “I don’t think the majority of strikers would have gone down so easy. But Michael has gone down and the referee is always going to give Michael those sorts of decisions.”
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