LONDON: Newcastle United have been dealt an injury blow with the news that Kieran Trippier’s return has stalled.
The $17million January signing has not kicked a ball since February, after breaking a bone in his left foot.
And while hopes had been raised last week that the England international could return sooner than expected, a scan on the injury on Friday revealed the issue, which required an operation, is yet to properly heal.
“His injury is healing. It is not totally healed. That’s where it is,” said Howe.
“We will not be able to start pushing him maybe as quickly as we initially wanted to.
“We still think he will come back this season, but there is no definite date on that.”
Trippier was in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium stands on Sunday, with his wife and two children, watching as the Magpies were hammered 5-1 by his former club.
A return date of April 23 had been pencilled in for the ex-Atletico Madrid and Manchester City right-back, however that may well be pushed back, depending on how the injury heals over the next few weeks.
On Friday, Howe revealed: “Kieran has a scan on his foot to see how that is healing, hopefully it will go well.
“Maybe we can push him quite quickly to get back. Hopefully we get good news.”
Meanwhile, striker Callum Wilson has taken to social media to confirm his hopes of an April return.
Using Instagram, the 30-year-old frontman, Newcastle’s top scorer with six goals this campaign, posted a story with the words “April, how I’ve waited so patiently for you,” accompanied by a football and egg-timer emoji.
Newcastle face Wolverhampton Wanderers on Apr. 8, then Leicester City on Apr. 17, Crystal Palace on Apr. 20, Norwich City on Apr. 23, before rounding the month off by hosting Liverpool on Apr. 30.
One player absent from Newcastle’s hammering on Sunday was Miguel Almiron, who only returned from international duty with Paraguay 24 hours prior to the trip south.
Howe confirmed that the forward missed out due to illness.
Another who was given extra recovery time was Bruno Guimaraes, fresh from his goalscoring exploits with Brazil in World Cup qualifying.
“I didn’t select him to start with because I wanted to revert to the midfield that had served us so well during the nine-game unbeaten run,” he said.
“And the fact he hadn’t been training with us and wasn’t able to prepare with us in the same way the other players had. There were a couple of different angles to look at.”
Guimaraes was introduced with the score already at 3-1 — and his introduction did little to alter the course of the encounter.
“I thought it was a difficult game for him to come into because at that moment we were still chasing the game and, as I said earlier, I don’t think we chased it very well. We weren’t efficient with what we were doing,” Howe said.
“It was a difficult game to come into because the rhythm of our game had gone.”
