Newcastle United unseen fitness concerns over key £158m trio - the 'extreme' reason they couldn't start
Eddie Howe felt forced to rest key Newcastle United players for Tuesday night’s big Carabao Cup semi-final against Manchester City.
Newcastle United were beaten 2-0 by Manchester City at St James’ Park in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final on Tuesday night.
Eddie Howe made seven changes to his side from the game following a demanding 120 minutes and penalty shootout against AFC Bournemouth in the FA Cup on Saturday. The match ended 3-3 but Newcastle emerged victorious on penalties.
Before that, The Magpies had another physically demanding game against Leeds United which they won 4-3 thanks to a 102nd-minute winner from Harvey Barnes.
Heading into the Man City game, Barnes had scored back-to-back braces against Leeds and Bournemouth as well as two goals in Newcastle’s 2-1 win over City earlier in the season.
But Newcastle’s top scorer was one of several big names to drop out of the side for the important semi-final clash against Pep Guardiola’s side. Nick Woltemade and Sandro Tonali also dropped to the bench, having played 120 minutes against The Cherries.
All three players ended up getting on the pitch with Barnes replacing the injured Jacob Murphy at the end of the first half while Tonali and Woltemade replaced Jacob Ramsey and Yoane Wissa in the second.
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Eddie Howe on NUFC team selection: I had ‘no choice’
Explaining his decision to rest the £158million trio, Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe felt he had ‘no choice’ given the fitness and availability of his players.
“Yeah, it’s not the situation we want to be in,” Howe said. “I think we’ve tried to rotate healthily this season in terms of dipping players in and out to keep them fresh and available, to keep them in their best form, to be able to perform.
“We just felt we had no choice but not to play Harvey, Sandro, Nick, because they’d played 120 minutes two days ago.
“The physical demands on that are so extreme that the likelihood is if we had have done, I think, a much higher chance that they could get injured and we can’t afford to lose anybody else.”
Newcastle currently have several injury concerns, with the majority of those being defensive. Fabian Schar, Dan Burn, Tino Livramento, Emil Krafth and Jamaal Lascelles are all out which has left Howe with just four senior defenders to choose from and 19-year-old midfielder Lewis Miley filling in where applicable.
Further up the pitch, William Osula and Jacob Murphy are also suffering from ankle and hamstring issues, respectively.
NUFC’s busy run of fixtures
It’s the time of the season, when games are coming thick and fast, when the injury pile-up can start to take its toll and have a knock on impact on the rest of the squad in terms of both fitness and performance.
Newcastle have managed their problems well in terms of results, having won four games in a row prior to Tuesday’s defeat.
But next up is a trip to Wolverhampton Wanderers - a potential banana skin for Howe’s side as the bottom of the table side head into the match four games unbeaten, having lost each of their last 12 prior to the recent resurgence.
After that, Newcastle are back in Champions League action against PSV Eindhoven as they look to mathematically secure progress to the next round and stay in the hunt for a top eight finish in the group phase.