Leicester City’s midfield injury fears have been realised with neither Wilfred Ndidi nor Harry Winks expected to be available to face Newcastle
City manager Ruud van Nistelrooy has ruled Ndidi out of the trip to St James’ Park with the hamstring injury he suffered in the 2-2 draw with Brighton. The Nigerian will be sidelined for a couple of weeks.
Winks, who hurt his groin in Steve Cooper’s final game a few weeks ago, is only just beginning to return to team training and so is doubtful. Van Nistelrooy will do a final assessment of Winks on Friday, but it sounds unlikely he will be available, especially to start.
“Correct, he has a hamstring injury so he’s not available for the game,” van Nistelrooy said of Ndidi at his press conference on Thursday. “We’re looking at the progress and will see how he reacts to the injury, but it looks like it will at least be a couple of weeks.”
“(Winks is) doubtful. He’s done part of team training today. Tomorrow we can increase that so we’re going to assess tomorrow if he’s available for the squad on Saturday.
“But it’s something that is very difficult because today was the first day he did partial team training. We’ll see tomorrow.”
With Boubakary Soumare suspended, Oliver Skipp and Hamza Choudhury are the only two senior options available to play deeper in midfield and will be the favourites to start. Choudhury has only played 14 minutes of Premier League football this term, and has not featured at all since September.
There are no further injuries for City, so the only others on the sidelines are long-term absentees Ricardo Pereira (hamstring) and Abdul Fatawu (knee). Facundo Buonanotte is available again after he was ineligible to face parent club Brighton on Sunday.
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