Eddie Howe has a plan to combat Newcastle United’s fatigue against Sunderland on Sunday.
The Magpies go into Sunday’s Tyne-Wear derby on the back of another gruelling Champions League game. Newcastle United drew 2-2 with Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday night, leaving them with not a lot of time to prepare for their trip to Wearside.
That is forcing Eddie Howe to tweak his preparations, as he gets set for his second ever Newcastle United vs Sunderland fixture as Toon boss.
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How Newcastle United are preparing to face Sunderland
The change comes on the training ground, as Howe attempts to emulate what appeared to work so well in between the Magpies’ Champions League defeat to Marseille and their Premier League win away to Everton.
According to the Daily Mail, Howe had his players in training on Thursday despite arriving back from Germany in the early hours of that morning.
The report adds that the Newcastle United squad will then have Friday off before training again on Saturday.
On the day of the game, the players will travel to the Stadium of Light from the Newcastle United training ground by coach. They will not be staying in a hotel.
A similar approach gave Newcastle their only away win in the Premier League this season, thumping Everton 4-1 at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
This is a seismically bigger game, and Howe will have his fingers crossed that his approach yields the same result as it did on Merseyside.
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While the Newcastle United manager has been tweaking his plan to best prepare his players for the derby, it has been a different story on Wearside.
Regis Le Bris’ team have been preparing to face Newcastle United all week, as they have no European commitments. Fatigue should not be an issue either, as they were dumped out of the Carabao Cup in the second round.
The Black Cats have had plenty of time to recover and prepare for the game against the Magpies, which is a luxury that Howe would love to be afforded.
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