Newcastle's 4-1 defeat to Leeds United at Elland Road on Monday night has triggered something of a knock-on effect, leaving head coach Matthias Jaissle facing a selection crisis ahead of this weekend’s fixture against Hull City.
Aside from the pain of a comprehensive beating in West Yorkshire, Jaissle now has fewer options available to him than when the game began.
The Magpies lost key wing option Anthony Elanga before kick-off, while midfielder Jacob Ramsey remained an unused substitute on the night.
Newcastle facing injury crisis
Addressing the worsening injury situation post-match, Jaissle offered an unwelcome assessment of Elanga's condition.
"The injury doesn't look good. We need to investigate how serious it is. Elanga is struggling with injury but at the moment it does not look that good."
The manager was equally pessimistic about Ramsey, who was unable to take to the field despite being named among the substitutes.
"The simple way to explain that is he felt his thigh in the warm-up so he was not able to play tonight.
"That was the next challenge. Tonight the story was many things came together. It does not look good for the weekend at the moment."
The less-than-ideal injury scenario continued during the match itself when midfielder Nico Gonzalez was forced off in the first half following a blow to the head.
Jaissle emphasised that the club prioritised player welfare over match circumstances in enforcing mandatory concussion protocols: "With Nico, as a manager and we as a club, we have the responsibility if he has that knock out feeling as we all saw. We have to be responsible to take him off the pitch even though he looked fine then. But there are rules for that occasion. Independent of how important it is to win a match, we are all human beings, and we take that seriously to take him off the pitch."
The potential absence of Elanga, Ramsey, and Nico compounds an already busy medical room at St James' Park.
First-team stalwarts Joelinton and Dan Burn remain sidelined with ongoing injuries, while right-back Amar Dedic is seemingly not 100% after being withdrawn in the second half against Leeds, having entered the contest carrying a knock from last week's tie against Millwall. Furthermore, FourFourTwo understands Will Osula has been wearing a protective boot since sustaining a foot injury on the opening weekend against Liverpool. He is expected to be out of action until after the international break.
With half a dozen key first-team figures potentially unavailable, what should have been an opportunity to bounce back against newly-promoted Hull City has morphed into a tactical headache.
