Newcastle United v Man City: Preview & latest injury news
Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe will be forced into making at least one change to his starting XI for the Manchester City clash.
The 21-year-old has only started one Premier League match since February after being ruled out for seven months with a foot injury that required surgery.
Upon his return, Hall appeared as a substitute in games against Liverpool and Leeds United before starting twice in four games, first away to AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League and then Bradford City in the Carabao Cup.
Bradford was Hall’s last start, as a hamstring injury sustained in the Champions League win away to Union Saint-Gilloise set him back a month.
But heading into the Man City clash, the 21-year-old has been racking up the minutes with back-to-back cameos against Athletic Bilbao and Brentford, before his 70 minutes for England under-21s against Republic of Ireland was followed up with another half-hour in Slovakia.
Lewis Hall in line to start for Newcastle United against Man City
In Hall and Tino Livramento’s absence, Dan Burn has been filling in at left-back, however the Blyth-born defender is ineligible versus Man City as he serves a one-match ban for the red card he received in the 3-1 defeat to Brentford last time out.
Livramento is expected to be available again this weekend but given he has been sidelined for the past two months, there will likely be a reluctance to throw him straight back into the starting line-up - furthering strengthening Hall’s hopes of a recall.
Speaking about Hall at his pre-match press conference, Eddie Howe said: “Lewis is a very, very driven human being. For someone so young, he's got a great mentality about him. He wants to play, wants to make a difference, wants to help his team. He's got standout qualities. I think we've really missed those qualities since he's been injured.
“But for someone so young, we've had to be really careful with him and try and get him back onto the pitch when he's close to 100% fit.
“I think that's the key thing for him now and that gives him the best chance then of staying fit. And especially with the schedule coming up, we're going to have to manage him at times, but yeah, he's a real talent.”
Tino Livramento injury update
Providing an update on Livramento, Howe said: “He's very close. He's trained this international break, which has been great to see. He's such an important player for us. Great to have him back, training with the group, he's shown his qualities.
“He's been out a while and his injury was serious enough to make sure we treat him well. But I'd say he's done a lot of work. He's been very, very good professionally in terms of how he's dealt with the injury and the work that he's done with the physios. So I'd say he's in pretty good shape.
“He's an outstanding player and he's got the athletic qualities and the technical qualities off both sides of the pitch that we've missed. So together with Lewis, coming back to fitness, they're two really young, energetic players that I think can add a lot to the team. I'm really pleased to have both players potentially available.”
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