'Pain-free' - Newcastle United player ruled out for seven games set to start v Fulham

Dan Burn could make his return to the Newcastle United starting line-up on Saturday against his former club Fulham at St James' Park (3pm kick-off).

Burn missed seven matches for Newcastle after falling awkwardly on his back in the 1-0 win over Arsenal last month. But the defender was pushed back sooner than expected as he came off the bench in Wednesday's 2-1 Champions League defeat to AC Milan.

After the match, Burn admitted: "Ideally, I could have done with another few weeks but the way it is at the minute, you’ve just got to push through it.

"I felt good and I had no pain whilst I was out there, I just hadn’t kicked a ball in five weeks so it takes a little while to get back up to speed. I’m happy to be back and helping the lads.”

And Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe believes all his injured players have a desire to get back to playing as quickly as possible with Burn ready to start matches moving forward.

"All the players who have been injured have had that thought in them," Howe told The Gazette. "They've all wanted to come back and they've all seen the position we've been in and I'm sure they've all had different emotions watching the team.

"There has been that 'can I push myself?' We don't want to push players where break down but if you're able to play like Dan's is more a pain management issue rather than a recurrence issue. He's done really well and he's trained pain-free."