Brace yourselves Newcastle United fans as this is absolutely not the news you’re going to want to hear this morning.
International breaks are a tense time for fans with their top players despatched around the globe to partake, usually in meaningless friendlies, with so much potential for things to go wrong in terms of injuries.
Now the news coming from Sky Sports Italia (via Football Italia) will have Newcastle fans crossing all extremities as it’s being reported that Sandro Tonali is out of Italy’s game against Ukraine tonight with a muscle injury.
Tonali will be looking forward to returning to Milan next week
The £55million signing from AC Milan is already a huge part of the Newcastle midfield and would definitely have been in line to start against Brentford on Saturday.
More importantly than that, though, is Newcastle’s first Champions League game in 20 years the following Tuesday which just happens to be at Tonali’s former club.
The report does say ‘slight’ muscle injury which suggests he could still be fit for Saturday and may not be as bad as it sounds.
Hopefully ‘slight’ means nothing to worry about for Newcastle
However, I’d imagine that Eddie Howe will play it safe and keep Tonali on the sidelines on Saturday with the hope that he’ll be fit to face Milan on Tuesday.
Obviously Tonali had just as much chance of picking up this injury if he’d been training with Newcastle but it always feels worse when a player picks up a knock on international duty.
Fingers crossed that by slight they mean slight and removing him from the game against Ukraine tonight is just a precaution more than a necessity.