Newcastle’s current injury crisis threatens to derail their entire season at this point.
Eddie Howe’s side were doing so well in the Champions League before losing two games against Borussia Dortmund, that their European journey is hanging by a thread at present.
With regards to the Premier League, after a slow-ish start for the Magpies, they picked things up and currently find themselves in seventh position after 12 games, just six points behind Tottenham Hotspur in the final Champions League spot.
As Premier Injuries note, however, they have 13 stars currently out and unavailable.
That is surely going to affect them over the next few match days and could potentially ruin the plans that Eddie Howe and Co. had put in place for success in 2023/24.
It’s perhaps with that in mind that, according to the Shields Gazette, Newcastle could be looking to bring Yankuba Minteh back from his loan spell with Feyenoord a few months early.
Though the 19-year-old lacks appropriate Premier League experience, he is nevertheless another body that Howe could call upon in the club’s hour of need.
“We’ll look at our players that are out on loan, with a view to whether they could potentially strengthen us,” Howe was quoted as saying by the Shields Gazette.
“If it’s good for their career as well, then we’ll certainly look at what we can do. He’s [Minteh] done very well, although unfortunately he’s injured at the moment. He’s come back for an assessment on that injury because we need to check and see how he is.
“We need to work out how serious the injury is and when he’ll be back, and then we’ll make a decision on him, like we would with all our loan players.”
Given that the Magpies also have to ensure that they remain on the right side of Financial Fair Play in January too, an earlier-than-anticipated move for Minteh makes sense.