Crystal Palace issue Wharton and Nketiah injury update ahead of Newcastle clash

Newcastle United are back in action on Sunday as they travel to Selhurst Park to take on Crystal Palace. The Premier League clash kicks off at 2pm live on Sky Sports.

After three weeks with no club football for Newcastle fans, it feels good knowing that the wait is almost over. We can finally put that derby nightmare behind us.

Sunday's opponents are in action tonight in the Europa Conference League quarter-final, where they will take on Fiorentina in the first leg at Selhurst Park.

It's going to be good to have the shoe on the other foot on Sunday with Newcastle going in as the fresh team after a season of playing every three or four days and going into Premier League games completely knackered.

Crystal Palace have lost Eddie Nketiah to injury

Another boost for Newcastle is that former Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah, who was supposed to make his long-awaited return to action tonight (Thursday), has had a setback in training.

The 26-year-old has been out of action for Palace since December and had earmarked tonight's game with Fiorentina for his comeback, but the forward has aggravated his hamstring in training today and is now expected to miss tonight's game and Sunday's match against Newcastle.

Oliver Glasner told the press on Thursday that things don't look good for Nketiah. He did say it was better news on Adam Wharton, which is great news for them, not so much for Newcastle.

"He had a minor adductor issue with England but it’s all sorted. He trained the whole week and is available tomorrow."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJWvRj1g8KU

Newcastle should be feeling confident

Crystal Palace have suffered similar issues with form this season as Newcastle, but have had a bit of added spice with manager Oliver Glasner admitting he's leaving the club at the end of the season after the board kept selling his best players from under him.

With the uncertainty behind the scenes, the fact that Palace are playing on Thursday and Sunday, and now that they have been hit with a setback on Eddie Nketiah, Newcastle should be going into this game full of confidence.

Yes, it's an away game, and they haven't exactly been kind to us this season, but the Magpies have several days extra training under their belt than Palace, and, as long as we don't suffer a similar fate, we're close to welcoming back Bruno Guimaraes from a long injury layoff.

We should find out on Friday morning whether Bruno will be ready to drop straight back into the team. We've got our fingers crossed, but we're not expecting him to play the full 90 minutes after being out of commission since February and having a bout of mumps on top of that.