Dwight Gayle looks set to for a lengthy spell on the sidelines, according to the Daily Mail’s Craig Hope.
The North-East reporter says the striker has suffered damage to his medical collateral ligaments and will be missing for ‘8-12 weeks’, with him set to see a specialist today ahead of an operation on his knee.
This comes after the striker hyper-extended his knee in our pre-season friendly win over Crewe last week, leaving Andy Carroll the club’s only fit striker with Joelinton yet to return to training.
Fortunately it’s an MCL – not a ACL which has kept both Florian Lejeune and Jetro Willems out for more like 6-8 months in recent seasons – however it still means we look set to be without last season’s top scoring striker until December.
On this plus side, Craig Hope has brought some good news on the striker front for Newcastle United fans, with his latest transfer piece for the Daily Mail revealing that we are Callum Wilson’s ‘preferred destination’.
His arrival would come as a welcome boost for Bruce given our total lack of fit strikers, never mind proven goalscorers, combined with the fact we’ve just lost 5-1 at Middlesbrough in our last pre-season friendly on Tuesday afternoon.
We’re set to face Boro again on Monday, this time at Benton, and Hope states that Steve Bruce is hoping to have Wilson in by then – although it seems we’ll have to offer them Matt Ritchie PLUS a decent amount of cash to get our man.
So, it’s bad news on Gayle but let’s hope that blow can be offset by the arrival of Wilson before our season kicks off at West Ham next weekend!
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