‘Devastated’: Eddie Howe now says Newcastle will be without ‘important’ player for a while

Newcastle United's horrible luck with injuries continues as Eddie Howe lost two more players during the Arsenal game.

Probably the most frustrating thing about the injury list at Newcastle is the manner in which these injuries have been picked up.

You expect players to pick up knocks and strains during the course of a season, that's just how it goes, but Newcastle seems to be going through a run of freak accidents that are taking players out of the game.

Dan Burn became the latest addition to the casualty list

Yesterday against Arsenal Dan Burn had to go off at half-time after battling through the final 10 minutes of the half with back pain after a bad landing when trying to win a header. That is similar to the dislocated shoulder that Jacob Murphy suffered in the Champions League game against Borussia Dortmund after he fell awkwardly.

Matt Targett pinged his hamstring stretching for a ball, Elliot Anderson has a freak back injury, Lewis Miley has just recovered from glandular fever, Harvey Barnes' toe just exploded on him. We just haven't been able to catch a break.

Ian MacNicol via Getty Images

When the teamsheet was announced yesterday it was a shock to see Jacob Murphy's name amongst the substitutes after his shoulder injury, but not only did he make the squad, he even got onto the pitch.

Murphy made an instant impact when he came on against Arsenal

He had only been on a minute when he was involved in what proved to be the winning goal, but his joy was short-lived as he suffered a recurrence of the shoulder problem that had just kept him out.

Speaking after the game to NUFC TV Eddie Howe spoke of how the club is devastated after seeing Murphy go off again.

“With Jacob’s shoulder that’s a huge blow, he’ll now have to get operated on so we’re going to miss him for a period of time and we’re devastated because he’s such an important player, we saw that when he came on. But it is what it is, we can’t do anything about it.”

It looks like it's going to be a while before we see Murphy's cheeky face out on the pitch again which would be bad enough any time, but when our squad is already depleted, losing someone like Murphy is huge.