Howe shares worrying news about his players ahead of Sheffield United

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Premier League newcomers Sheffield United face Newcastle United on Sunday and Eddie Howe has shared an update on his players ahead of the game.

It has been a big week for Newcastle. On Saturday evening Eddie Howe‘s men ended a run of consecutive defeats by overcoming Brentford 1-0 and then his side traveled to Milan for the small matter of Champions League football.

The added complexity of traveling to Milan for the game was always going to be a big thing to deal with but with the delays the side faced getting over there, it likely added an extra level of mental strain on the players.

Eddie Howe is taking a cautious approach to Newcastle’s training

That might explain why Howe is taking a cautious approach to training this week and may end up having to make several changes to the line-up to face Sheffield United.

In his press conference this morning, Eddie Howe revealed that there is more than just the physical strain to contend with after Tuesday saying (h/t The Chronicle): “Those that played haven’t trained. Physically they can’t — that would be negative taking more energy from them. We probably won’t train fully before Sunday. We will be ‘training’ — but not at maximum. I don’t think anyone can measure emotionally what Milan took out of us.”

Hopefully Howe has plenty of confidence in his players’ fitness levels that they will be match fit to play on Sunday after a week of low-intensity training.

Newcastle will have to be careful of fatigue against Sheff United

There are of course options for Howe to change things up in terms of the starting eleven, but as he said himself in the media brief, he can’t go making ‘wholesale changes‘ as it will disrupt the rhythm of the team.

That means that there will be several players who played on Tuesday night who will be called upon again on Sunday.

With all due respect to Sheffield United, this is a much easier game on paper, and one that Newcastle should be winning, but as we know, games aren’t played on paper, and if half the team are leggy after an exhausting week, we could be on the wrong end of a shock result.