Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe is expecting Nick Pope to be ruled out for “around four months” following the goalkeeper’s injury against Manchester United on Saturday.
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The Magpies face Everton at Goodison Park on Thursday night (kick-off 7.30pm GMT), targeting a sixth win in their previous seven Premier League clashes against the Toffees, who currently occupy 18th place in the English top-flight after being handed a ten-point deduction.
Pope added his name to the Magpies’ ever-growing injury list after the England international dislocated his shoulder in the final minutes of Newcastle’s 1-0 triumph against Erik ten Hag’s Red Devils but Howe expressed his belief in Slovakian shot-stopper Martin Dúbravka, who won the club’s 2019/20 Player of the Year award, to deputise strongly in Pope’s lengthy absence.
Howe also commented on Newcastle’s recent Emirates FA Cup draw, with the Magpies set to face local rivals Sunderland at the Stadium of Light in a highly-anticipated third round tie in January.
Here are some of the boss’ main talking points from the pre-match media briefing at United’s Benton-based training ground on Wednesday morning:
On Pope, who was withdrawn in the closing stages of the Magpies’ 1-0 win against Manchester United last weekend due to injury:
“He’s had a couple of appointments visiting specialists. I’m awaiting final news on what’s going to happen. We anticipate he’ll be operated on and there’s no doubt he needs an operation so he’ll be out for a period of time.
“The operation hasn’t happened yet but we’re thinking roughly around four months so a big blow to us but one we expected after the game as soon as you saw the dislocation. We were fearing the worst.
“I think he’d been in the best form that he’s been in since being at the football club. He’s naturally down because it’s at a stage where we have so many games, with huge games coming up. He’s got the Euros ahead of him which he was determined to try and be involved in and there’s still a chance for that for him.
“His main determination is to come back for us and you never know what situation we’ll be at that stage of the season. We were thinking of him in that situation because it was another strange injury, with no reason for that to happen in that moment.”