Eddie Howe has been putting his Newcastle United squad through their paces ahead of Saturday’s trip to Aston Villa, and this week’s group has included Alex Murphy.
The 18-year-old defender joined Newcastle last summer, arriving from Galway United. Murphy has been part of the Magpies’ Under-21s squad, but is currently training with the first-team.
The club have uploaded a selection of training photos from Thursday’s session to the official website, and the teenager can be seen taking part. He has been spotted in photo number 12, completing a drill alongside Joelinton, Jacob Murphy and Sven Botman.
It is excellent to see the Irish youngster involved with the senior side, and hopefully it will become a regular occurrence in the future. That will be the aim of Dan Ashworth, who brought the highly rated left-back to Tyneside last summer.
This is not the first time that Murphy has been involved with Howe’s first-team. He travelled to Saudi Arabia during the World Cup break and featured in the Diriyah Season Cup against Al-Hilal, while he was on the bench for the friendly with Rayo Vallecano at St James’ Park late last year.
Alex Murphy joined by Miguel Almiron in Newcastle training
Murphy is involved in the team’s preparations to face Aston Villa, and so is Miguel Almiron.
It was reported during the week that the 29-year-old was back after recovering from a thigh injury, and he can be seen in the training pictures that have been uploaded to the club’s official website.
It is a huge boost to have Almiron back – especially with Allan Saint-Maximin currently out with an injury of his own.
Hopefully Almiron’s return to full training means he is fit enough for a place on the bench at Villa Park, where he will hope to face the team he scored against earlier in the season.
The Paraguayan scored a cracker in a 4-0 win at St James’ Park, back when he was enjoying a purple patch and Villa were in rotten form.
A lot has changed since then, however. Almiron is not Newcastle’s form player, while Villa are revitalised with Unai Emery in charge.
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