Some may see it as an excuse, but injuries absolutely ruined Newcastle United’s 2023/24 season.
The club wanted to kick on after doing so well in qualifying for the Champions League, yet every obstacle was thrown in their way to ensure that did not happen.
Newcastle United had the worst luck ever when it came to cup draws, and those cup draws became even tougher when the injuries piled up.
In total, eight of Newcastle’s first-team players missed more than 20 games through injury. On top of that, Sandro Tonali has been unavailable since October.
The Magpies were without so many players, yet had a fixture list that would not relent. During the winter months, they were playing pretty much every three or four fays. It was non-stop, to the point that Newcastle United had to take action on the training pitch.
What Newcastle United stopped doing midway through the season
A new report from the Telegraph has detailed a very surprising decision that the club made during the middle of the season.
According to the Telegraph, Newcastle United barely trained for six weeks midway through the 2023/24 campaign.
They state that because of the amount of injuries the Magpies had, Eddie Howe could not risk doing proper sessions with his players. The Telegraph state that they would do ‘occasional walk through sessions for team shape’, but that was as intense as it got.
It was a brave decision by Howe, who does his best working on the training pitch. That is where he thrives, doing all that he can with his players to make them better. Injury ended up robbing him of that opportunity, which was not ideal for the likes of Lewis Hall who needed coaching.
Interestingly, the report adds that Newcastle’s training hiatus was kept a secret – until now.
Newcastle right to keep this a secret
It was wise to keep that information private until now. Given the mood of fans during that difficult period, hearing that the players were not even able to train would have sparked huge debate.
The incredible fixture list and the amount of injuries made the middle chunk of the season very difficult, but it should act as a learning curve. That will be the hope, especially if Newcastle make it into the Europa Conference League.
While the games in that competition will not be against Europe’s biggest clubs, there could be some long journeys and difficult away days on a Thursday. It will present the Newcastle players with a challenge, but one they should be able to deal with given what happened this season.
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