Steve Bruce has confirmed Martin Dubravka will start in tomorrow night’s FA Cup clash with Arsenal at The Emirates.
The Slovakian is yet to feature this season after suffering a serious heel injury over the summer, but it seems both he and Jamaal Lascelles will feature against The Gunners, with the skipper back from COVID and training all week.
Elsewhere, Bruce has also confirmed that the game will come too soon for Jamal Lewis (knee) and Ryan Fraser (groin), however the positive news is that both aren’t far away from returning – with the latter training over the past three days.
The NUFC boss has also revealed that Allan Saint-Maximin is back in the country and set to be assessed in the coming days – although it seems he’s still a few weeks away from returning to action after being unable to do any fitness work for almost two months!
Here’s what he told BBC Newcastle, starting with updates on Fraser, Lewis and Lascelles:
“Ryan Fraser has trained the last three days. We’re now going to give him another few days’ training, so he won’t be involved this weekend. But, he may be involved on Tuesday or in the league game at Arsenal, a week on Monday, certainly.”
“Lewis won’t take part this week – we hope maybe next week (he’ll be back). He twisted his knee and is resting up.
“Lascelles is better news – he’s trained all week and will be involved for this trip.
“Everybody else is OK.”
Bruce on Dubravka:
“Martin will play. It’s the ideal one for him.
“How fortunate we are in that area.
“We all understand what he has done in his Newcastle career and now Karl has grasped that opportunity too.
“The competition is good so we welcome back Martin.”
Bruce on Saint-Maximin:
“He’s now back in the country and we’re hoping the doctors can, in the next few days, give him the go-ahead to resume.
“It’s fair to say he hasn’t done anything now for the best part of six weeks.”
So, Dubravka to start, Lascelles set to feature and Lewis, Fraser and Saint-Maximin ruled out once again.
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