The Newcastle United players have enjoyed a session at the club’s training ground before flying out to Italy to face AC Milan in the Champions League.
Eddie Howe and his players travel to Milan this afternoon ahead of tomorrow evening’s game, where the Toon boss is expected to make a couple of changes to his starting lineup.
It has been reported that Sandro Tonali and Alexander Isak will start at the San Siro. The latter starting hints that Callum Wilson will be dropped, despite scoring the winner against Brentford on Saturday.
Wilson has actually trained alone ahead of the flight to Milan, while the rest of the team have been put through their paces by Howe.
The likes of Bruno Guimaraes and Kieran Trippier have been preparing to represent the Magpies in the Champions League, but there was one player involved in training who definitely will not be selected against AC Milan.
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Matt Ritchie trains with Newcastle ahead of AC Milan clash
Ahead of Tuesday night’s game, the club have uploaded a selection of training photos to their official website.
In those pictures, Matt Ritchie can be seen taking part. The 34-year-old is yet to feature for Newcastle this season, and has only appeared on the bench once – that was in the 1-0 defeat to Manchester City.
Despite being involved in training, Ritchie will not be part of the Newcastle squad that takes on AC Milan. That is because the £12million player was not named in the club’s 23-man Champions League squad that was announced earlier this month.
Ritchie is one of four senior players who were not selected. Mark Gillespie, Emil Krafth and Javi Manquillo were also excluded from the Champions League squad.
While he will not be able to play, it will be interesting to see whether or not Ritchie, and the other players mentioned above, travel to Milan. You have to imagine he will be there, as he is a key figure in the dressing room and his presence could really help the players as they prepare for what is a truly massive game.