Eddie Howe has bad injury update for Newcastle after defeat to Nottingham Forest

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Eddie Howe has offered an injury update for some of his Newcastle players after the disastrous defeat to Nottingham Forest on Tuesday.

Newcastle have struggled massively with an extended injury list all season, but that doesn’t look to be improving heading into the new year.

In his interview after the game, Howe was very honest in revealing that no players are expected to return to the team imminently and that he believes the answer to turning around their form already lies within the squad.

Newcastle need more options heading into January

With defeats to Luton and Nottingham Forest in the last two games, it looks obvious that keeping the same team and the same style for the next fixtures against Liverpool and Manchester City is going to result in the same outcome.

Newcastle and Howe are desperate for some rotations options like Joe Willock or Harvey Barnes who can inject a bit of energy into the side and be a bit more direct when the team are struggling to break a defence down.

Willock missed the start of the season with a hamstring injury and now is recovering from an Achilles tendon issue, so it’s not exactly clear when the 24-year-old will return.

As for Barnes, the winger has been missing since injuring his foot in the 8-0 win against Sheffield United and could still be out for a few weeks yet.

In his interview, Howe said: “My gut feeling is the answer always lies within. The players and people we have here are good enough. The injuries we’ve suffered, I don’t think anyone is coming back in the next few days. We still have players who are finding their fitness from other matches. We’ve not had it easy, and I think that needs to be acknowledged by me more than anything else.”

Howe thinks Newcastle can solve their own issues

Questions have been raised about both the squad and the manager after suffering six defeats in the last seven across all competitions, sparking conversations about who the club need to sign in January.

However, Howe believes that the answer to turning the form around already lies in the squad and suggests that Newcastle don’t need to do any serious business to start climbing the Premier League table once again.

This doesn’t mean that Newcastle aren’t going to sign anybody next month, of course, but it certainly sounds like Howe is preparing for a difficult month in which the club are limited to what they can do.