Fulham suffer triple injury blow ahead of Newcastle United clash as key trio ruled-out by Marco Silva

Marco Silva has revealed that he will be without a trio of key players when his side make the trip to St James’ Park to face Newcastle United on Saturday. Fulham come into the game having defeated Nottingham Forest and West Ham 5-0 in their last two outings and full of confidence that they can inflict a fourth defeat in a row on Newcastle United.

However, they will have to do that without the services of Adama Traore, Tim Ream and Issa Diop after Silva admitted that none of the trio will be fit to face the Magpies. Speaking about their injuries, Silva said: "Tim Ream will be out and Adama [Traore] as well. All the others will be available for the match. Tim felt something in his calf against Nottingham. He is not training. Let's see, him returning before Christmas will be too early.

"It's a process. He's [Issa Diop] been training for the last two weeks. If you ask me if he is 100% ready, I will say it is probably too early for him. He's doing all the right things. We will see how he reacts to each session and keep assessing him. There are good signs from him too."

Although Silva was downcast on Ream, Traore and Diop’s availability for Saturday, he did provide a more positive update on Willian’s fitness. The former Arsenal and Chelsea man was withdrawn at half-time of their win over the Hammers on Sunday and Silva believes the Brazilian could feature against Newcastle.

Silva said: "He is OK. He trained this morning. We keep assessing him and checking him and try to recover him as much as we can, not just for this next match. When he trained this morning he felt OK. Let's see the next few hours."

Newcastle United, meanwhile, will certainly be without Kieran Trippier as he serves a one-game ban for collecting five Premier League yellow cards. Eddie Howe will hope to have the services of Sven Botman and Joe Willock to call from in the coming weeks, but Saturday’s game will come too early for the pair to make their respective returns from injury.