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Newcastle United news: On-loan defender Matt Targett has been praised for playing through an injury whilst at Middlesbrough.
Newcastle United loanee Matt Targett has received praise for battling through the pain barrier during Middlesbrough’s 2-1 win over Birmingham City on Saturday. Targett joined Boro during the summer transfer window and has enjoyed a solid start to life at the Riverside Stadium.
However, uncertainty over the managerial situation on Teesside, with Rob Edwards expected to take over at Premier League side Wolves, means Targett may have another manager to impress in the coming weeks. Boro currently sit second in the Championship table, trailing leaders Coventry City by five points following the weekend’s round of matches.
Target, meanwhile, started against Birmingham City and played an hour under caretaker boss Adi Viveash before being replaced by Geroge McCormick. That game marked Targett’s 12th appearance since moving to Middlesbrough.
A 17th minute goal from Dael Fry was cancelled out by a strike from former Leicester City winger Demarai Gray on the stroke of the half hour mark. Hayden Hackney, though, restored Boro’s lead during added-time in the first-half and that was a lead they were able to hold onto until full-time.
Matt Targett injury news
Targett’s hour long stint on Saturday drew praise from his caretaker manager who praised the 30-year-old for playing through the pain barrier in a match that, as Viveash admitted, he wouldn’t have been able to feature in had it come 24 hours earlier: “We had a couple of problems and injury doubts before and knew it was a bit of a risk,” Viveash said. “Dael [Fry] and Matty Targett, great credit to them.
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“They wanted to go through it for the club and for their team-mates. That’s pretty powerful, especially in sport when you see that magnitude and unity start to move.
“Dael’s is the calf issue. We don’t know how it is. I’ve not spoken to the medical department yet. I don’t know the extent, but obviously he couldn’t continue. With Matt, he took a heavy challenge from Fatawu which should have been a second yellow on Tuesday night. He caught him right on the top of the foot.
“He got stitches and couldn’t train yesterday. If the game had been yesterday, he couldn’t have played. So tremendous respect for him. He had an injection before the game and went out and did a fitness test. We probably thought he had 45 at max in him.
“But he’s such a good player for us and brings such quality, the fact he got through 60 speaks volumes about his character. Hopefully Dael is not too bad. The international break comes and offers the club the chance to assess and we look at that further down the line.”
An international break now means top-flight and second-tier domestic football in England takes a backseat next weekend. Targett will be given an opportunity to recover from that injury before Middlesbrough return to action against Oxford United on Saturday 22 November. Three days after that, Boro then face fellow promotion hopefuls Coventry City at the Riverside.
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