£63m Newcastle United duo suffer fresh injury set-backs - ruled out for Nottingham Forest & Liverpool

Newcastle United have been hit with two fresh injury set-backs as they rush to have players back available amid a hectic festive fixture schedule.

Harvey Barnes and Joe Willock were understood to be closing in on returns for Eddie Howe's side but have now been ruled out until the new year. Willock suffered a recurrence of an Achilles injury while Barnes has been out since September with a foot issue.

When asked if he had any update on the pair, Howe said: "No, not really! Joe Willock is in a period where he's a couple of injections into his Achilles which has been a longstanding problem for him.

"A difficult injury. We are in the process of trying to get him back fit this side of January.

"And that will be the same for Harvey. Unfortunately, he didn't have surgery on his foot, the specialist felt he would be okay and we're still hoping it's not longer term and he won't need an operation but we're still in that phase of whether he's going to come back or not.

"I'm not saying the end of January [for a return], we might not see them before just because of the amount of games we have."  

The Magpies recently welcomed Callum Wilson, Sean Longstaff and Dan Burn back from injury sooner than expected. Kieran Trippier and Anthony Gordon both picked up knocks in Wednesday's 2-1 Champions League defeat against AC Milan.

"Kieran's missing this [Fulham] game through suspension so it's probably a good time for him to rest a couple of knocks that he's got and we'll see how he looks for next week," Howe added. "Anthony is usually a very quick recoverer of different things. We'll how he is today. So I've given you nothing!"

Assessing the club's injury situation as a whole, Howe felt Newcastle have gone from a 'mainly negative' to 'mixed' position.

"It's mixed and it's been mainly negative for so long on the injury front but we've battled through," Howe added. "We're getting players back but we're not getting them back in their best physical condition. 

"Dan Burn is close to being back, Sean Longstaff is close to being back. We're just having to manage them so they stay back.

"We've had some bizarre injuries that have contributed to the situation that we're in. I don't think it's linked to our style. I'm not naive, we play a high-running game but all the top teams in the world play a high-running game, I can't think of any top teams that don't run.

"We just need the squad to handle that and we felt pre-season we had that but no squad could cope with the number [of injuries] we've had. I'm not making excuses, I haven't got my violin out, it is what it is, we're embracing it and trying to do the best we can."

Newcastle will be hoping to bounce back from three consecutive defeats in all competitions when they host an in-form Fulham side at St James' Park on Saturday afternoon (3pm kick-off).