No sign of £45m man in today's training gallery as Newcastle United prepare for FA Cup quarter final

Newcastle United's last chance of silverware this season is the FA Cup as the boys head to the Etihad Stadium on Saturday to face current holders Manchester City.

It's hardly the easy route to Wembley, but it was always likely that whoever lifts the trophy this season would have to knock out Manchester City at some point, lest the winners be City themselves, obviously.

Cup draws have been unkind to Newcastle this season, to say the least, so it was hardly a shock when our ball was drawn from the bowl last right after that of Man City after we narrowly booked our place in the quarter-final with a win against Blackburn via penalty shootout.

Whatever the outcome on Saturday, the consolation prize is that there is an international break which means Eddie Howe gets some more time to work with the bulk of his squad to get them prepared for the business end of th season. It also gives our injured stars a chance to recover without missing out on games.

There was no sign of Anthony Gordon in the training gallery

Newcastle United today released their weekly gallery of training pictures which is usually a good indication of who will be fit and ready to go for the next fixture and there were a few noticeable absentees.

There were no real shocks, given that Callum Wilson, Nick Pope, Joelinton and Harvey Barnes were all expected to miss Saturday's venture to Manchester anyway, but we'd be lying if we said we weren't holding on to some home that we'd at least see a glimpse of Monday night's casualty, Anthony Gordon.

Serena Taylor via Newcastle United

Newcastle will often exclude players from the training images on purpose

After rumours swirled that Gordon's season was effectively over after picking up that knock against Chelsea on Monday, it has since been reported that the injury is not as bad as first feared and there was an outside chance that he could be back in action at the weekend.

Granted, Gordon not appearing in the gallery of images doesn't mean he won't be. In fact, it doesn't even mean he hasn't trained. The club often exclude players from the images if there's a doubt over their availability. It keeps the opposition guessing.

That being said, Dan Burn was pictured training after he also came off injured against Chelsea after falling awkwardly going up for a header. We expect that he will once again be involved at the weekend. No, we can't contain our excitement either.