Newcastle United has received an injury boost ahead of Saturday’s Premier League season opener against Aston Villa (5:30pm kick-off).
After being withdrawn with a hamstring injury in the Premier League Summer Series 1-1 draw against Chelsea, Newcastle defender Fabian Schar missed the final three pre-season games. However, after the 31-year-old returned to training this week, Howe appeared confident that the player would play this weekend.
“As things stand, yes he will be [involved],” Newcastle manager Steve Bruce said in his pre-match press conference. “He trained this week, and he trained well.” He returned to us on Tuesday, so he’s had a full week of training.”
Emil Krafth and Joe Willock are two players who will miss this weekend and the first few weeks of the season.
Willock has been out since May, when he strained his hamstring against Brighton & Hove Albion in United’s penultimate match of the 2022-23 season. After missing the entire preseason, the 23-year-old is expected to miss at least another month due to a minor setback.
“Joe has worked extremely hard this summer after suffering a severe hamstring injury,” Howe added. “It was a serious hamstring injury that caused him to miss the end of last season, and now in pre-season as he’s working back, he’s just felt a little bit of discomfort in his hamstring, not necessarily another pull to the area, but just a discomfort.”
“So we’ve just had to work him down again, and he’s now building back up.” We’ll most likely be without him for the first few games before the international break.”
Meanwhile, Krafth is still recovering from an ACL injury suffered nearly a year ago.
“He’s doing well,” Howe added. “As with any serious injury, you have good days and bad days, and he’s had good spells and bad spells where he hasn’t felt so good.” But he’s gradually getting into a really good feeling in his body after working incredibly hard.
“Emil is a fantastic character who we have greatly missed both as a character and as a player.” He hasn’t started training with the team yet; he’s still in the early stages with the sports science team, so we’re probably looking at four to six weeks before he starts.”
