New Newcastle United 'plan' confirmed by Eddie Howe

There's a two-week break in the domestic calendar after the March 17 game against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground – and Howe – who took his squad to the Nad Al Sheba Sports Complex in Dubai last spring – has confirmed the sixth-placed club’s “plan”.

Asked if he intended to take the squad to Dubai again, United’s head coach said: "That's the plan. We'll have quite a few players away so I think we'll have quite a small group, but that is the plan as we currently stand."

Bruno Guimaraes will be among those going to the United Arab Emirates, as the midfielder wasn’t included in the latest Brazil squad.

Howe – who used to take his Bournemouth squad to Dubai – spoke about the “first-class” facilities at the Nad Al Sheba Sports Complex last March.

“For me, it's one of the best training arenas in the world,” said Howe.

"First-class facilities, a world-class pitch and the facilities around the pitch are second to none. We took the boys in the altitude chamber which they really enjoyed – swimming pool, cryotherapy chambers – we utilised everything we could to help the players.

"It's nice to expose the players to (the facilities). When you want to really push the players hard physically, you need to have the highest level of recovery equipment to utilise, and we have that here.”

Newcastle played a series of 20-minute training games against Gulf United’s academy last year during their stay in Dubai.