Joelinton amongst five Newcastle players not involved in Darlington friendly despite returning to training

Newcastle United's pre-season preparations are underway with a week of training behind them and now their first pre-season friendly completed too.

On Saturday, Darlington FC visited The KNOX for a behind-closed-doors friendly against the Magpies.

Eddie Howe fielded two different teams for the game, going with a more familiar starting XI for the first half and then giving a couple of debuts and plenty of youngsters a chance in the second period.

Newcastle would win the game 3-0 thanks to goals from Joe Willock and Will Osula in the first half and one from Sean Neave in the second.

Joelinton missed Saturday's game along with three others

Despite returning to training last week, there were still some familiar names absent from the team sheet on Saturday.

Joelinton was pictured back in training last week, but the Brazilian missed the last few games of last season, so he was given a bit of extra time before being put through his paces and sat out Saturday's game.

Fabian Schar is still recovering from his long-term layoff and was afforded the same, as was Lewis Miley who is back training on the grass but is not yet ready to build up his match sharpness after suffering a fractured fibula.

Finally, from the injured parties, Tino Livramento was sent home from the World Cup before England had even got their campaign underway after suffering a calf injury in training. While he's back at The KNOX, he's not training fully just yet.

Tino may be the last one over the line

We're not sure how much longer Livramento, Miley and Schar will be kept out of the firing line, although by the sounds of it, Miley and Schar are ahead of Tino right now.

Even though he was pictured back in training, Anthony Elanga didn't participate against Gateshead as he returned later in the week and was a few days behind everyone else.

Elanga had some impressive outings at the World Cup, and his confidence should be soaring, which can only be good news for Newcastle.