Great news as Florian Lejeune makes first appearance of the season for Newcastle United

Florian Lejuene is back!

The Newcastle United centre-back was at first a concern for the whole season when suffering an ACL injury in pre-season.

However, he has made excellent progress and on Friday, Rafa Benitez said he could even have included him in his squad for the Wolves game if pressed.

Reality is though that he needs to build towards a first team return.

A massive step on the way to that sees Florian Lejeune named to start his first competitive game since last season.

The Frenchman named in the Newcastle Under 23 team to face Norwich tonight.

Instead of 50,000+ at St James Park, there will be a few hundred at most to watch him at Whitley Park tonight, a 7pm kick-off.

As well as Lejeune’s return, all eyes will be on the 19 year old striker having an outstanding season, 18 goals altogether this season so far, Elias Sorensen now has 14 goals in his last 11 appearances.

As for the reserve team, they are in great form overall and in the last 11 games in all competitions, have  nine wins, one draw and just the single defeat. In the process scoring an impressive 29 goals in the 11 games.

Newcastle United Under 23s:

Harker, Walters, Gibson, M. Longstaff, Lejeune, Watts (c), Longelo, S. Longstaff, Sørensen, Roberts, Wilson

Substitutes:

Huuhtanen, O’Connor, Sangare, Juanito, Toure