'Demoralising': Sean Longstaff has spoken about the affect the injury crisis is having on the Newcastle players

Whatever the reasons, be it bad luck or bad management, there's no denying that Newcastle United have had a rotten run of injuries that has directly affected things this season.

The Athletic have done a fantastic deep dive into the injury problems which includes some conversations with anonymous club sources as well as quotes from players and Eddie Howe to hammer home their point.

Newcastle have sat atop the injury table for most of this season and look nailed on to lift the Premier League Golden Crutch which absolutely isn't a thing.

We've had players playing through injuries just so that Howe can field a full side. Sean Longstaff has been playing through the pain for large part of the season.

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They're here, they're there, they're every chuffing where, empty seats

It's bad enough when players are missing, but when you're also having to field players who aren't 100% it's hardly ideal.

Sean Longstaff was quoted in The Athletic talking about the injury crisis and how it affects the rest of the team, a thing that's often forgotten about.

"It's demoralising. Maybe that's excessive.

“When you look around our meeting room and everyone’s there, you think, ‘Yeah, we’ll win tomorrow’. Then there’s times you walk in and there’s six, seven empty seats … It can be tough.

“We go ahead in games, someone gets injured and it’s like a sucker punch, then someone comes on and gets injured and it feels like a never-ending cycle. Ultimately, we’re a team — our greatest strength is in each other, how we can chop and change and the performance levels never drop — and this just takes the life out of us.

“The way we play is so front-foot and aggressive, but it’s hard to do it every game in those circumstances, especially if you’re not feeling 100 per cent. That makes it worse.”

It might be time to ease up on the whole 'intensity is our identity' thing

Eddie Howe's wounded warriors only have seven more games to get through, but that's seven more opportunities to pick up more injuries.

It's something that absolutely needs addressing in the off-season. Maybe someone needs to sit Eddie Howe down and tell him to calm down a bit as the high-intensity approach, while effective, is potentially ruining careers.

Two players in the space of a month needing ACL surgery is frankly not normal. It's going to affect our transfer business too. What player in their right mind is going to want to come to the club that breaks players?