Update on Karl Darlow injury situation – Report
Many Newcastle United fans would argue that Karl Darlow has been the best goalkeeper in the Premier League so far this season.
What isn’t in any doubt, is that the NUFC keeper has been the busiest.
Making more saves than any other goalkeeper in the Premier League so far this season.
Saturday night was typical, Karl Darlow making more saves (eight) against Man Utd than any other PL keeper made at the weekend.
However, he was also in the wars, a ball played through and Darlow bravely diving at the feet of Marcus Rashford and getting a nasty collision for his troubles.
After lengthy treatment the Newcastle keeper looked in a lot of pain and couldn’t move freely around the area, yet to the astonishment of Newcastle fans, Steve Bruce left Karl Darlow on for the final half an hour of play despite having two substitutions to go at the time and Mark Gillespie on the bench.
It was quite ludicrous, with Newcastle’s defenders quickly realising they couldn’t pass back to the goalkeeper as his movement was restricted and potentially wouldn’t be able to clear the ball properly.
Following the injury, Darlow conceded three more goals but it was more to do with the failings of Steve Bruce’s tactics and the players in front of him, rather than the keeper at fault as Man Utd got in behind three times and gave the 30 year old no chance.
Steve Bruce was asked about the Karl Darlow injury after the 4-1 hammering by Man Utd:
“He thought he was ok and I think if you look at the goals, even a fit goalkeeper wouldn’t have saved them.
“We just hope he is ok.
“It is that horrible rule again where we’ve said, if the linesman puts his flag up a little bit quicker, I don’t know if he is offside of not, but that’s the sort of situation what we’re talking about, the linesman keeps his flag down and he [Darlow] has had to come out and go at somebody’s feet.
“So we hope he is not too bad, he’s a bit sore in the dressing room at the moment, but it was one of them fine margin ones.
“If a linesman had put his flag up quicker, maybe it might not have happened.”
Well, entirely down to luck rather than good judgement, Steve Bruce appears to have got away with this one.
On Tuesday night, Craig Hope has given an update.
Covering Newcastle for The Mail, Hope says that his information is that Karl Darlow appears to have avoided serious injury and that tests have shown that he has ‘bone bruising around the pelvic area’ but hopefully nothing worse.
The report adding that whilst the keeper is sore, he should be ok for the game at Wolves on Sunday.
With Martin Dubravka now likely to be out until at least December, it would have been a nightmare to have Karl Darlow also ruled out, especially with the kind of form he has been in.
Fingers crossed that The Mail report is on the money and if so, we are now just waiting to see how Isaac Hayden is, after being forced off on Saturday.
Another Steve Bruce classic as he revealed (see below) after the final whistle against Man Utd, that Isaac Hayden hurt his hamstring before half-time but he (Bruce) decided not to take the midfielder off.
Then sent him out back out for the second-half, only for Isaac Hayden to have to make clear to Steve Bruce after only four minutes following the break, that he couldn’t continue and had to come off.
It was clear Hayden wasn’t comfortable / moving well, so here’s hoping that Steve Bruce gets lucky on this one as well.
Steve Bruce on Isaac Hayden injury:
“Unfortunately he nicked a hamstring in the first-half, just before half-time.
“We thought he was going to be OK for the second but obviously he wasn’t.”
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