Bournemouth dealt major fitness blow ahead of Newcastle United clash with ‘eight to ten’ players affected by virus

The Cherries have defeated Norwich City and Everton so far in the competition and travel to St James’s Park knowing a win would book them a spot in the Quarter-Finals. However, in order to do that, they must beat a Newcastle side that has tasted defeat just twice in-front of their own fans this calendar year.

And their task hasn’t been made any easier with news that a virus has swept through the Bournemouth dressing room over the last few weeks, giving boss Gary O’Neil a few selection headaches ahead of the game.

“We’ve had a tricky last ten days, a real bad virus that went through the group,” O’Neil said. “So we’ll have to make some last-minute calls on quite a few.

“Some of the boys have missed real, long spells with it – up to ten days some of them have missed training, so it was a nasty one. I think we had eight to ten missing at one point last week. And that has run over a little bit into this week.

“But we have enough available and I’m hopeful when we get there tomorrow things will look a little bit better and we can name a real, strong team.”

Both managers are expected to name strong sides for the game with Eddie Howe being able to call upon Bruno Guimaraes, Callum Wilson, Nick Pope and Kieran Trippier all back in training following their World Cup excursions.