Eddie Howe’s side will head into Sunday’s Premier League clash on the back of suffering a narrow 1-0 loss to defending champions Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.
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Newcastle hosting Liverpool is undoubtedly one of the most eye-catching fixtures of the weekend. Eddie Howe’s side will head into Sunday’s Premier League clash on the back of suffering a narrow 1-0 loss to defending champions Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium. Hence, they would be eager to bounce back in their own backyard. However, a clash against Liverpool is never going to be easy for any side.
Ahead of the much-anticipated fixture, Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe provided a squad update. He spoke about Joelinton, who picked up an injury against Manchester City last weekend. He also gave an update on Joe Willock. Starting with Joelinton, Howe, quoted by his club’s website, said in the press conference, “Joe is fine. We didn’t see him in the first part of the week, but he’s trained in the latter part, so fingers crossed he’s OK.”
Then he provided a detail account on Joe Willock’s recovery from a hamstring issue. “He’s making good progress. I’d say this is the strongest he’s looked, in terms of his hamstring. I think he had his hamstring rescanned a couple of days ago and the report back on that scan was very, very good – no problems. He had a bit of fatigue in his hamstring – I don’t think there’s a major re-injury, but he’s done really well, he’s committed to his work. We hope that he’ll be training with us around the international break time,” he added.
The Newcastle manager also spoke about new arrival Lewis Hall, who is known for his versatility. “He played against us a couple of times last year, and he impressed me, as someone so young, to come into those situations and perform the way he did. Preparing for those games, we watched a lot of Chelsea and he’d just broken in before our first game I believe, and he caught my eye immediately. I really liked his attitude, how he played the game, his physical attributes, his technical attributes, so I think he’s going to be a good signing for us,” he explained.
“I think he has the attributes to play in many different positions. He’s only recently in his career converted to left back, so I think he’s probably had a year training and playing there. But he’s also played as a number eight, a number six, left wing, wing-back, left back, and even for England he’s played as a centre back in a back three and a back four I believe. There’s real versatility, and that was one of the attractions for us, because going into this season where we’re going to need as many players as we can to play different positions.”
Howe then shifted his attention to Liverpool and spoke about what to expect from them on Sunday. “These games are iconic, really, throughout the Premier League, the Newcastle-Liverpool battles. Last year we were disappointed in the two defeats for us. The one at Anfield was a difficult night – the last minute of that game has been replayed in my mind many times. The game at home was also painful in a different way, probably more painful for Nick (Pope_ in what happened for him, missing the (Carabao) cup final. It was a day where we didn’t start very well but I thought we played very well with ten men against 11,” he elaborated.
“There’s slight tweaks (in Liverpool’s set-up) I’d say – I don’t think the main principles have changed. They’re still very, very good at what they have been historically good at for the last four or five years. (They’re a) very difficult team to play against, but they are building a new team, you would say, with slightly different characteristics in midfield. They’re an elite team with an elite manager, they’re very, very good and they’re going to come back strong, for sure. We know this is a really good early test for us, following on from Manchester City and Aston Villa.”
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