It’s emerged this morning that Newcastle United are likely to be without last seasons player of the year Martin Dubravka for the start of the season.
The Chronicle’s Lee Ryder has revealed that the Slovakian FA have withdrawn the goalkeeper from their squad for the upcoming international break and expect him to be out for “6-8 weeks” after picking up an ankle injury during pre-season.
Here’s what Slovakia coach Pavel Hapal has had to say:
“He has problems with his ankle, he dropped out for six to eight weeks.
“I believe that he will be fine for the next matches.”
“The next matches being Slovakia’s October Nations League games.”
This comes after Dwight Gayle hobbled off in our pre-season win over Crewe on Tuesday and looks set to be the latest injury blow Steve Bruce must contend with ahead of the new 2020/21 season.
This perhaps explains why the Slovakian failed to feature against Crewe on Tuesday, with Mark Gillespie playing the first 45 and Karl Darlow featuring in the second half.
In addition, The Chronicle reveal that Newcastle can NOT recall Freddie Woodman from his loan spell at Swansea, meaning U-23 talent Dan Langley would come in as our third choice goalkeeper while no.1 is out.
We can only hope that’s it’s less than two months that he’s missing for, with Dubravka undoubtedly one of our key players and the main reason we were able to dig out a few hard fought draws and unlikely wins last term.
Moreover, there’s no doubt that we have an extremely important start to the campaign – and it now looks like Dubravka could miss opening games against West Ham and Brighton.
Let’s hope (and pray!) this isn’t a bad one.
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