New report claims NUFC trio are now “extremely doubtful” for Crystal Palace game

According to the Northern Echo, Miguel Almiron, Jonjo Shelvey and Ciaran Clark are all “extremely doubtful” for Saturday’s clash with Crystal Palace.

Steve Bruce stated earlier this week that he was hopeful ‘one or two’ would return after all three missed last weekend’s 1-0 defeat at Turf Moor, however this latest update suggests they may be absent again.

Sky Sports reported that Almiron and Shelvey were rated ’50/50′ for the game and claimed it would come down to their ability to come through training on Thursday, while Shelvey stated yesterday that he was in with a chance of returning after a ‘minor calf strain’.

Both were badly missed at Burnley, with Sean Longstaff and Christian Atsu failing to deliver in their absence, so we’ll have to hope the Northern Echo have got this wrong and the duo manage to pull through.

Our superb options at centre-back suggest we can manage without Clark, with Fernandez, Schar, Dummett and Lejeune all available, but our lack of creativity and spark was evident without both Shelvey and Almiron last weekend.

Palace have injury issues of their own, with Van Aanholt, Townsend, Cahill, Schlupp and Ward all ruled out for the visitors, so we could be seeing two significantly weakened sides going at it come 3pm Saturday at St James’ Park!

(Fancy writing for us? Send any articles/ideas over to us at [email protected] & we’ll get back to you!)

About Olly Hawkins

As a Junior Magpie since birth and season ticket holder, I eat, sleep and breathe all things NUFC! Here at the blog, I aim to bring you news, views, match reports and transfer exclusives as and when I get them.

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