Newcastle United were forced into a bit of a match-day squad shuffle on Saturday as Eddie Howe picked his first team since his return from illness.
Heading into the game, Eddie Howe lost a couple of players through injury and ended up having to change the starting lineup and also named two goalkeepers on the bench once again.
Joelinton has been playing with a knee issue for a while, but concerns are growing about the damage being done, and as such, he was left out of the squad and sent to see a specialist.
We'll have to wait and see what the specialist says as to whether the Brazilian can still play a part in the remaining games.
While Howe was in the dark about Joelinton's immediate future, the Newcastle gaffer seemed more sure on Matt Targett, who has picked up another injury, as he told NUFC TV at full time yesterday.
"We lost Matt Targett this week to a hamstring problem. Again, nothing serious but enough, maybe, to end his season."
Surely this has to be the final nail in his Newcastle United coffin now.
As we've said before with Callum Wilson, we know it's not the player's fault when they get injured, but at the end of the day, they are being paid a lot of money to do a job that they can't physically do, and in this PSR-driven times, we can't afford to be wasting money on players who do not play.
Matt Targett's injury record since he made his move to Newcastle a permanent one has been a joke, and regardless of how nice of a guy he is and how good he was for us when he was here on loan, he's just eating into our budget.
For us, he's got to be one of the first players out of the door in the summer. Sorry, Matt.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
![]() |
36 | 46 | 83 |
2 |
![]() |
37 | 34 | 71 |
3 |
![]() |
37 | 22 | 66 |
4 |
![]() |
37 | 20 | 66 |
5 |
![]() |
37 | 9 | 66 |
6 |
![]() |
36 | 24 | 65 |
7 |
![]() |
37 | 13 | 65 |
8 |
![]() |
37 | 9 | 55 |
9 |
![]() |
36 | 3 | 55 |
10 |
![]() |
37 | 2 | 54 |
11 |
![]() |
36 | 12 | 53 |
12 |
![]() |
36 | -2 | 49 |
13 |
![]() |
37 | -3 | 45 |
14 |
![]() |
36 | -13 | 41 |
15 |
![]() |
37 | -18 | 40 |
16 |
![]() |
37 | -12 | 39 |
17 |
![]() |
37 | 2 | 38 |
18 |
![]() |
37 | -45 | 25 |
19 |
![]() |
37 | -44 | 22 |
20 |
![]() |
37 | -59 | 12 |