Report: Eddie Howe will show his support of Sandro Tonali tomorrow as prep for Palace continues

Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe will face the media on Friday morning ahead of the visit of Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Eddie Howe will likely be spending this afternoon preparing answers for the inevitable barrage of questions he's going to face tomorrow regarding Sandro Tonali as The Chronicle reports that Howe will be speaking up in support of his midfielder.

While the Friday morning press conferences are generally meant to be for questions surrounding the upcoming weekend fixture, tomorrow will be the first time Eddie Howe will have faced the media since the news broke that £55million summer signing Sandro Tonali is involved in a betting scandal in his native Italy.

Sandro Tonali has admitted to having a gambling addiction

The former AC Milan player has since admitted to having a gambling addiction and betting on AC Milan games while still a player for the Serie A side. It's now highly likely that Tonali will be slapped with a lengthy ban from football.

Newcastle are just playing a waiting game now to see how long that ban will be and what The FA's reaction to it will be.

The club released a very brief statement yesterday acknowledging the situation and expressing that Tonali, and his family, have the full support of the club. (Albeit on a webpage with three betting companies plastered on it.)

Howe is unlikely to give much away about the Tonali situation tomorrow

That is likely to be the rhetoric Howe will be repeating tomorrow, and he's probably going to do his best to duck and weave all the questions, giving blanket statements that don't give away much more than what we already know.

The big question is whether Tonali will play any part in the game against Crystal Palace on Saturday in light of all that's going on.

There are two schools of thought here. Either Howe can play him in the hope that it gives a sense of normality and distracts him from what's going on, or on the flip side, Howe may feel that between the accusations, the revelations and indeed the travelling he's had to do this week, that maybe his head is not in the right place.

We think Howe should drop Tonali for Saturday's game

The Chronicle appear to be leaning towards Tonali being involved on Saturday, hinting that Howe wants Tonali to prepare for the game.

We think he'll not feature. Even if he feels mentally prepared to play, you can guarantee that the Palace fans will target him and that could throw him off his game. For us, he should be rested until this thing comes to a head one way or another.

If nothing else, it will give him more time to get settled into the area as he does appear to be struggling since he arrived.