Eddie Howe met the media this morning to give an update on all things Newcastle United ahead of their trip to Selhurst Park tomorrow for the Sky Sports televised fixture against Crystal Palace. Kick-0ff is at 5:30pm.
There is one main injury concern that has been on everyone’s mind for a week now, and that’s Bruno Guimaraes. The Brazilian left the field in tears on Sunday after rolling his ankle in an innocuous challenge. He somehow played on for a further twenty minutes with the ankle heavily strapped, but feared the worst when he came off at half-time.
When Howe was asked about how Bruno is getting on he said:
“He’s ok. He was devastated to come off the pitch. He felt at the time he had done serious damage to his ankle. The scan was positive so hopefully not a long-term injury.”
When asked if there’s a timescale for his return, he said: “No I don’t as we speak. We just hope it’s not long-term. He’s made good progress this week.”
Howe will have to do some shifting about with his team this week, but has had high praise for Sean Longstaff who will feel like he will need to step up another level in Bruno’s absence: “Sean has been excellent, he really has. A lot of tireless work for the team. We ask a lot of our midfielder players. Tireless with his energy, defensively very good and he’s improved almost every aspect of his game.
I think when you go back to where Sean was a year ago – there was a lot of uncertainty over his future. He’s Newcastle through and through but he wanted to feel valued and wanted to see a path for his future. You can never give those guarantees to any player but what I saw over the summer was he was very committed and I believed he could have a big part in our future.”