Newcastle United are continuing to assess Joelinton on a day-to-day basis with club insiders not writing off his season just yet.
The £40million man missed the 3-0 win over Ipswich Town last weekend and has not trained since. The 28-year-old will be sidelined for the trip to Brighton & Hove Albion, but a return before the end of the campaign has not been ruled out.
No risks will be taken on Joelinton, and should Newcastle bag their Champions League place early, he could be rested with Eddie Howe knowing he has plenty of back-up in midfield. However, by the same token if he is deemed fit enough and Newcastle need him in a potentially crunch late season game, he could come back into consideration.
Lewis Miley, Sean Longstaff and Joe Willock have all been in contention this week as they look to impress the boss ahead of the clash at the Amex Stadium.
Howe said on Joelinton last week: “He’s going to see a specialist. He trained yesterday, but just felt his knee wasn’t 100 per cent right, and that’s the knee that he had an injury with earlier in the season.
“He’s done brilliantly to play through the number of games that he has without being 100 per cent fit, but he got to the point where he felt he needed a slight intervention, so let’s keep out fingers crossed it’s not serious.”
Meanwhile, club captain Jamaal Lascelles is making good progress behind the scenes and trained on the grass with the squad yesterday. Lascelles has not featured for over a year after a serious knee injury but is eager to get at least one appearance under his belt this term.
The former Nottingham Forest defender’s contract was triggered for an extra year during his injury. Speaking about his fitness hopes recently Lascelles said: “I definitely feel like I’m getting on the right track in my recovery from an ACL injury. I’ve had a couple of little setbacks – nothing to do with the knee, just low-level muscle injuries which can happen when you spend such a long period of time away from the grass and your body adapts to the increasing load.”
However, Lascelles was filmed on camera on Wednesday joining in a session with his team-mates and he was in the dressing room for the celebrations against Ipswich at the weekend.
