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I think we have heard this somewhere before…”He will be like a new signing for Steve Bruce”

4 years ago
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Steve Bruce has a number of players missing this weekend.

Isaac Hayden is suspended, whilst we learnt on Thursday that both Andy Carroll and Fabian Schar are now injured and will miss the Wolves match.

A total of at least five players are definitely unavailable, with Steve Bruce saying both Florian Lejeune and Matt Ritchie aren’t ready to return yet.

This is despite both the club announcing that both players are training with the rest of the squad this week.

As well as his contributions to the team, the super fit Matt Ritchie has had an impressive record of previous availability for Newcastle United.

The winger/wing-back was available for 116 of the 122 NUFC league games before this season and almost all of the six games where he wasn’t available for selection were down to suspension, not injury.

Whilst Ritchie has also shown commendable willingness to make up for the lack of investment in the squad by playing alongside largely squad players in the cup competitions, the former Bournemouth star having started in 10 cup games so far for Newcastle United.

Matt Ritchie has now been out since his injury on 28 August against Leicester in the League Cup, over eight weeks now.

After the announcement that Ritchie was back in training, we have now had the classic ‘he will be like a new signing’…

Alan Pardew churned that one out pretty much every week as he did Mike Ashley’s PR work for him but thankfully it isn’t Steve Bruce saying it on this occasion.

Instead it is former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson speaking to Football Insider:

“He (Matt Ritchie) has been out a while, he will be like a new signing for Steve Bruce.

“He has obviously not had him around much while he’s been there.

“Pictures of him coming out and back training again, it’s only good.

“As a fellow professional, you see players who have been out a long time, you know how frustrating it is yourself.

“It’s still a long journey to go when you get back to the grass, there’s still a lot of conditioning and strength and physical work to get you back but yeah, early signs seem very good.”

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