Newcastle United are still sweating on the fitness of key trio Anthony Gordon, Dan Burn and Sven Botman for the trip to Man City at the weekend.
Gordon missed the 3-2 win over Birmingham City in the FA Cup fourth round on Saturday night due to a quad muscle injury while Burn limped off early in the five-goal thriller after hurting his groin. Botman was never going to be risked at St Andrew’s after coming off towards the end of the Carabao Cup semi-final victory over Arsenal.
As Chronicle Live reported last night, Gordon could be touch and go for the Etihad Stadium clash with Joe Willock standing by to take a left wing slot against the English champions. Blyth lad Burn continues to be assessed, but Howe stated on Friday that Botman had avoided long-term injury and the knee issue was “not serious”.
Botman could be in with a shout of returning to the defensive rearguard against Pep Guardiola’s side but Emil Krafth is on standby to partner Fabian Schar Howe is concerned about the amount of injuries that are creeping into his squad and moves have been made behind the scenes to limit the amount of training time for certain stars.
Having got through the bulk of the season with fewer problems last term, with the arrival of injury prevention specialist and performance chief James Bunce coming in last summer, Newcastle are now down to the bare bones.
Howe said: “In the last couple of weeks, we seem to have picked up a couple. It would be the last thing [we need] to derail us. We have such a small squad. Last season, we had big numbers of players out, and it disrupted us in the middle of the season.”
Newcastle’s chances have not been helped defensively by the departure of Lloyd Kelly to Juventus. Despite a tough start for the ex-Bournemouth man in Italy, he would have arguably been playing for Newcastle this weekend at City given the amount of potential absentees.
Speaking about Burn’s injury with the 6ft 7in centre-back missing only a couple of games this season in all competitions, Howe said: “That’s the big negative of today. It looks like he’s picked up an injury to his groin.”
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