Double injury boost for Eddie Howe has unsurprisingly not come off as £20m man fails fitness test

Eddie Howe was hoping to have both Alexander Isak and Callum Wilson available for selection for Newcastle United for the first time this season going into Saturday's game.

Alexander Isak has been nursing a broken toe for a few weeks and after sitting out international duty with Sweden, he should be set to return to face Brighton on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Callum Wilson, who has been missing since pre-season with his latest injury setback, has already missed a couple of return dates and now it seems like we're going to have to continue to wait for his return.

Craig Hope's Newcastle Confidential column has suggested that Wilson 'may need more time'.

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Callum Wilson's Newcastle legacy is turning to mush

Callum Wilson's phenomenal strike rate for Newcastle can only carry him so far and at a certain point that goodwill has to run out, and with each missed return date, his legacy at Newcastle United swings further from 'awesome striker' to 'forever injured waste of money'.

We're all well aware of how good Wilson can be and it's a huge shame to see his Newcastle legacy deteriorate into the latter category. We should have moved him on in January when there was interest.

Newcastle's reluctance to bring in a new centre-forward is costing them massively, and opting to bring in Will Osula who Howe doesn't believe is ready to make an impact is a move they should have done after signing a first-team striker.

It's time for Eddie to give Osula his shot

We're confident that there's a top player in Will Osula. In fact, we'd be happy to see him given a run out in the Premier League for the Toon. He had plenty of games for Sheffield United so it's not as if it's alien to him.

A 21-year-old striker who isn't quite at Howe's level is still better than a striker lying pegged out on the treatment table 50 weeks out of the year.

Eddie Howe will no doubt give us an official update in the morning, but how many more times are we going to have to report on Wilson not being available? It's getting beyond a joke now.