Wolves injury news: Gary O’Neil reveals fresh injury blow ahead of ‘big test’ against Newcastle United

Wolves will be without midfielder Joe Hodge for the game with Newcastle United on Saturday evening. Speaking to the media ahead of the game, Wolves boss Gary O’Neil revealed the blow and provided an update on Jean Bellegarde’s fitness, admitting the midfielder is unlikely to be named as a starter this weekend having not had a full week’s training under his belt.

O’Neil said: “Hodgey has had surgery on his shoulder. It’s been ongoing for a while, he had an issue with it coming out too many times over the past few weeks in training, disrupting him, so we took the opportunity to get that fixed. Hopefully that’s him in a slightly better place. He’ll be missing for a while. 

“Jean Bellegarde’s doing well, we’ll have to see how he is tomorrow morning, but hopefully he can be involved. He hasn’t had a full week’s training, so he’s unlikely to do all 90."

Wolves face Newcastle a week on from defeating O’Neil’s former club Bournemouth 2-1 at the Vitality Stadium whilst the Magpies come into the game on the back of a defeat to Borussia Dortmund in midweek. Although Eddie Howe’s side were defeated last time out, they have went six Premier League games without defeat and scored a comfortable win over Crystal Palace last weekend.

O’Neil, who guided the Cherries to two 1-1 draws against the Magpies last season, has acknowledged that his side face a ‘big test’ on Saturday but has challenged his team to remain aggressive in everything they do. O’Neil said: “It’s the same as most games really. 

“We try to be aggressive when it suits us, try to have some good control of the ball when we can, try to carry a threat. Newcastle carry some real, key threats and one of the main ones is energy and mentality.

“They’ve got the boulder rolling at the moment and it’s tough to stop, as you’ve seen in recent games. It’s a good challenge for us, the boys are looking forward to it, I’m looking forward to it. It’s a big test and we’re looking forward to seeing how far we’ve come and how we go up against them tomorrow.”