Newcastle United training ground injury blow confirmed - player set to miss rest of the season

Matt Targett has hardly featured for Newcastle United so far this season due to various illness and injury reasons along with the form of players such as Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento.

The 29-year-old has played just 19 minutes of Premier League football this season with his only starts coming against lower-league opposition in the FA Cup. He started just once in the league last season and has made a total of seven top flight starts in three seasons since joining from Aston Villa on a permanent £15million transfer.

After coming off the bench in the closing stages of Newcastle’s 4-1 defeat at Villa, Targett was omitted from the matchday squad for the following 3-0 win over Ipswich Town on Saturday. It was later revealed that his absence was down to a fresh injury blow.

Matt Targett suffers fresh injury for Newcastle United

Targett was out of action for over a year following successive fitness issues. The left-back suffered a serious hamstring injury followed by Achilles tendonitis last season before experiencing a serious eczema flare-up that delayed his return to first-team action earlier in the season.

Now Targett’s season looks to have been cut short once again due to a fresh hamstring issue.

Explaining Targett’s absence, Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe said: “We lost Matt Targett this week to a hamstring problem. Again, nothing serious but enough, maybe, to end his season.”

Newcastle United major injury concern as fourth player could be out

Targett joins Lewis Hall on Newcastle’s injury list of players set to be out for the rest of the season. Jamaal Lascelles is looking to get back in contention before the end of the campaign but is unlikely to start any games after being sidelined for 13 months with an ACL injury.

Newcastle were boosted by the return of Sven Botman from a knee injury against Ipswich but were dealt a fresh blow in training ahead of the game as Joelinton had to withdraw from the matchday squad.

The Brazilian suffered a flare-up of a knee injury that sidelined him for around a month between February and March.

Joelinton has been to see a specialist for further assessment and is set for a scan to see whether he will still have a role to play in Newcastle’s remaining four games of the campaign. Newcastle travel to Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday before hosting Champions League qualification rivals Chelsea at St James’ Park.

The Magpies then travel to Arsenal before ending the season at home to Everton.

Providing an update on Joelinton’s injury, Newcastle head coach Howe said: “Yeah, he's going to see a specialist, actually.

“I'm sure he'll be scanned there as well. But he trained yesterday but just felt his knee wasn't 100% right.

“And that's the knee that he had an injury with earlier in the season. He's done brilliantly to play through the number of games that he has without being 100% fit.

“But he got to the point where he felt he needed a slight intervention. So let's keep our fingers crossed it's not serious.”

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