‘Huge blow’ - Newcastle United star facing injury lay-off after ‘bizarre’ Man Utd incident

Eddie Howe has confirmed Matt Targett suffered a hamstring injury during the opening stages of their win over Manchester United on Wednesday night. Targett lasted just two minutes before being replaced by Miguel Almiron.

The former Aston Villa man went down clutching his hamstring and Howe has described Targett’s injury as a ‘huge blow’ amid a growing injury crisis at the club. Targett is set to join Sven Botman, Elliot Anderson, Harvey Barnes and Jacob Murphy on the sidelines, leaving Howe ruing his team’s luck with injuries at the moment.

Howe said: “I have no idea how it happened or why it happened - it’s bizarre. It was early in the game so he is obviously not fatigued at that moment and he’s just stretched his leg up to tackle and the minute he hit the ground he was waving to us on the sidelines and I knew he was in trouble. It looked like a hamstring [injury] which would be a huge blow.”

Although it seems like Targett will miss a period of games as he recovers from injury, Howe is remaining hopeful that the injury isn’t as bad as potentially first feared. “The only hope for me is that he wasn’t running at the time,” United’s head coach said. 

“Sometimes those are the worst ones when you are [doing] an explosive action. But he’s still in pain and he’s struggling to walk now so it doesn’t look good.”

Newcastle United’s next task is a game against Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal at St James’ Park before a trip to Dortmund on Tuesday.