‘Magic’ Newcastle United medical team working overtime on injured stars

He’s a vital player, very important, and he’d get us 18 or 20 points a season with the way he plays.

“We’re asking the medical department to be working overtime but they’re pulling out all the stops trying to get all the lads out”. “Here, it just seems to be one disaster after another”.

“I couldn’t believe the text I got on Saturday evening”. If you’re together and they know you’re doing the job, doing the right things and the players are responding – be it Newcastle or whatever – they’ll say, “You know what – we’re on the right lines”.

Rob Elliot is the only current first team keeper fit for Newcastle following Netherlands worldwide Krul’s cruciate knee ligament injury picked up while on duty over the break.

Despite sitting on the bottom of the table without a win, Fabricio Coloccini said Newcastle United are still positive about survival.

McClaren, who was given the target of a top-eight finish when he accepted his job during the summer, had asked people to judge him after 10 games, and that point is rapidly approaching with the picture looking less than rosy.

He did not feature in pre-season after sustaining a thigh injury in the latter stages of last season, but McClaren is confident he is ready to step into the breach when Newcastle entertain Norwich City on Sunday.

“He’s in as good a condition as you can be without actually playing”, McClaren told reporters.

Newcastle have seen Tim Krul, Karl Darlow, Steven Taylor, Daryl Janmaat, Paul Dummett, Massadio Haidara, Jack Colback, Gabriel Obertan, Rolando Aarons, Kevin Mbabu and Papiss Cisse all in the treatment room at some point over the last few weeks.

Concerningly for the Magpies, there is scope for their injury problems to get worse as they monitor an old injury sustained by Elliot last season.