Bruno Guimaraes and Lewis Miley blows have added to Newcastle's injury woes
Lewis Miley
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Newcastle United's under pressure medical team have been defended after the Magpies suffered further injury setbacks to add to Eddie Howe's problems.
Newcastle secured a vital three points with a battling win over Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday night, but the joy was tempered by a worrying injury to captain Bruno Guimaraes in the closing stages. That came amid news breaking of Lewis Miley suffering a setback in his return from a thigh problem.
The duo join Joelinton, Fabian Schar, Tino Livramento and Emil Krafth in the treatment room as United's squad stretches towards breaking point.
Last month, a report revealed Newcastle have lost more days to injury this season than any other club and while the numbers were disputed by insiders at the club - Jamaal Lascelles' absence was included, despite him being free from injury - there is no doubt that the club have been on the verge of a crisis at times.
Dan Burn and William Osula have just returned from lengthy absences while Yoane Wissa is still getting up to speed after his injury. Sven Botman, Jacob Ramsey, Nick Pope and Kieran Trippier have all had spells on the sidelines too.
However, injury expert Ben Dinnery insists the headlines can be misleading and says there is an obvious explanation for the amount of games Newcastle players have missed.
"People love headline numbers- they want the biggest, the worst," he told ChronicleLive via Poker Scout. "There's several ways you can look at it and slice the data. But ultimately there's no surprise in the fact that the teams that have had the most injuries and lost the most days to injury are all involved in European football.
"Firstly, when you look at those tables that were produced and how that information was picked up you'll look at Newcastle, Arsenal, Man City, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, all of those will feature fairly prominently on any injury table or for days lost.
"You are comparing someone like Newcastle who have had something like 39 games to Burnley who have no European football, or Manchester United. You're not comparing like for like. You're looking at teams who have maybe played eight, nine, 10 games more. The more games you play, the greater the risk of picking up these problems.
"Then with discussions around injuries and the mechanism of injuries, it's also about the type of injuries that clubs and players have suffered. Some you consider as avoidable but with others, like Dan Burn, Newcastle have suffered a lot of contact injuries this season which are just part and parcel of the game. Dan Burn's coming together, Fabian Schar who is sidelined but hopefully back before the end of the season.
"So it's not just those headline numbers, it's about the types of injuries. People will always have an opinion but you need to add context.
"A great example was a club that came up from the Championship a few seasons back, they hadn't suffered a hamstring injury in two years. They had statistics and metrics that were off the chart, unlike anything we had ever seen since we started reporting and recording numbers. The following season they suffered three big injuries. The same squad , same players, same backroom staff - nothing had changed. It was all down to luck."
Newcastle are clearly suffering bad luck. It had been hoped that Miley would be back for the Spurs game, only for further tests to show that what was thought to be a dead leg could keep him out for another couple of weeks. Guimaraes, meanwhile, is waiting on results of an assessment by the United medical team.
"You're going to have peaks and troughs," added Dinnery, founder of Premier Injuries. "Newcastle's record has been great relatively with the same squad, the same training methods but we have European football involved and you see that increased exposure, that quicker turnaround and less time on the training pitches.
"You start to see why teams and squads become stretched around European football because it is really, really tough this footballing schedule.
"The better teams will also have international players - you throw in two or three international games into their two-week break, with travel as well, you can see why players are breaking down."
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