Newcastle set to make World Cup history with new record

Newcastle United will have EIGHT players at this year's World Cup, a new record for the club.

The club's previous record was six players back in 2014 when Newcastle had a trio of French representatives and Shola Ameobi was playing for Nigeria.

There were no Newcastle representatives in the England squad back then, but this time we have three of our boys representing the Three Lions, with Dan Burn, Tino Livramento and Anthony Gordon all confirmed to be part of the squad this morning.

Beyond our home nation, though, we have another five Newcastle players who could be set to take part in this summer's tournament in North America.

Newcastle fans have four other nations to monitor

Bruno Guimaraes got the nod for Brazil as expected, but Joelinton wasn't so lucky. The popular Newcastle enforcer missed out after an injury-hit season.

Malick Thiaw and Nick Woltemade will represent Germany. We expect Woltemade to get plenty of minutes at the tournament, which should be a good boost to his confidence ahead of a huge season. We're not sure Thaiw will get a great deal of game time, but we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Anthony Elanga and Yoane Wissa will be there representing Sweden and DR Congo, respectively, after those nations snuck into the competition via the play-offs.

It could and should have been more

While eight players going to the World Cup is a monumental achievement for Newcastle, it could, and probably should have been more.

We still cannot believe Lewis Hall was omitted from the England squad, given the season he's had, and not to mention how he mugged off Lamine Yamal so often in that game against Barcelona at St James' Park. Harvey Barnes, Nick Pope and Aaron Ramsdale were all in contention, too, albeit much less likely to get the call-up, but that could have really boosted Newcastle's numbers.

Sandro Tonali's Italy and Will Osula's Denmark failed to qualify for the tournament, and we'd expect that both of those players would have been part of their respective squads had they made it to the competition.

We can't really complain too much, though. Eight representatives is a massive achievement, especially with three being English. When you consider Liverpool has no players in the England squad this time around, it shows that potentially, the tide is turning.

With a bit of luck, by the time the transfer window closes, we'll have more players who were involved in the World Cup in our squad.