More injury madness.

Newcastle have been dealt a double blow today with the news that both Andy Carroll and Dan Gosling face an extended spell on the sidelines.

Carroll has been out of action since the back end of December with a troublesome thigh injury, but it was thought that the Geordie colussus would be fit to return to action in a couple of weeks. Apparently not, as the club have now decided to send Carroll to Sweden to see a specialist.

As for Gosling, well he has suffered a setback to his knee which is likely to keep him out for a month. The ex-Everton player has been out for nine months after damaging his cruciate ligament, so it is understandable that the lad has suffered a glitch in his recovery when you consider how much football he has missed.

It's a shame for the pair as I'm sure all they will want to do is play football. Carroll will no doubt be itching to represent his home-town club and to put on that number nine shirt again, whilst Gosling will just be eager, and grateful, to be playing again. The fact that the pair are going to be out for longer is a blow for them, the fans, the players and for Alan Pardew.

“We brought him here (to Portugal) to start running, and the disappointing news is that he hasn’t,” Pardew told the Sheilds Gazette when asked about the fitness of Carroll. He continued:

“His injury is in the muscle, just above the tendon where it joins the knee, so it’s not an area that gets great circulation, and therefore doesn’t heal quickly."

“We’re hoping we can turn him around quickly, but now I have to say that Fulham is definitely out, and possibly even Arsenal. We can’t rush him back.”

Bad bad news. Don't get me wrong, the rest of the team have coped admirably so far in the absence of Carroll, but we look a much better team when Carroll is in the side. Put bluntly, if you take your top scorer out of the side it will have an impact at some point.

Moving onto Gosling, Pardew revealed this:

“It’s such a shame, because our medical team worked really hard with him,” said Pardew. “Anyway, we’ve brought him back, and in all this time there was a slight swelling that wouldn’t go away."

“The surgeon suggested we carried on the treatment, and now we think we need to perhaps have a look in this knee. If you’ve got swelling, it’s not right. Unfortunately for Dan, he’s going to have to be patient, and we are too because we got all excited when we thought he was ready to come back.”

The rumour is that Gosling will be out for another month as he continues to recover. Carroll could be out for less than that, or he could be out for more than that. I just hope that the rumours I hear about Carroll's injury being with him for the rest of his career turn out to be false. The worrying thing is that the same bloke told me Carroll was off to Sweden before it was widely known, and he got that spot on.

Still, fingers crossed!