Newcastle sweating on new injury concern – Eddie Howe hopeful it’s not serious

Just as our fixture list has piled up, players have been dropping like flies, with Fabian Schar’s ankle ligament injury against Leeds followed by Tino Livramento’s hamstring issue against Bournemouth.

Last night, another Mag was forced off in Jacob Murphy, who appears to have a niggling hamstring issue that is starting to cause some concern.

After feeling it in the latter stages of our 2-0 win over Crystal Palace and playing just 10 minutes of our previous two games, he was forced off before the break in our semi-final defeat to Man City.

Speaking after the match last night, Eddie Howe seemed to think that Murphy hasn’t suffered any serious hamstring injury, but admitted it’s an issue he’s been battling for a few weeks now, meaning further assessment will be needed to see what’s going on after previous scans came back clear:

‘We don’t think Jacob’s injury is serious. But of course, we’re waiting to see the full extent.

“He’s had a hamstring problem for a couple of weeks.

“He’s had two scans that have come back clear, so we’re not quite sure what’s going on with him.”

Given how much football Barnes and Gordon have had to play over the past 10 days, coupled with Elanga’s complete lack of confidence or form, it would create yet another January headache if Murphy faces a spell on the sidelines.

Howe sounds hopeful, but this is now the second time in his last two starts that Murphy has broken down, which doesn’t bode well when we still have five games to play over the final two weeks of January.