Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe has been speaking to the media before Sunday’s Premier League game against Sunderland at St. James’ Park (kick-off 12:00 GMT).
Here are the key lines from his news conference:
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On Sandro Tonali’s availability after he was forced off with an injury against Barcelona: “We’ll wait and see. Hopefully it is not as bad as I first feared when I saw him limping off the pitch. We will see how he is today (Friday) and make a decision closer to the game.”
Howe is “hopeful” Lewis Miley, Bruno Guimaraes and Fabian Schar will be available after the international break, but all three are unavailable for this game.
On Lewis Hall’s call-up to the England squad: “He’s had a really good last few weeks, his performances have been excellent. Against Barcelona, he was playing one of the best players in the world. I thought he was really good going forward and he’ll only get better through experiences like that.”
Talking about how his players must react after their heavy midweek defeat by Barcelona, Howe said: “We need to regroup and, as always, look at some of the positives. I know we lost 7-2, but for the first half we were more than a match for Barcelona, it was a very even game. Our bravery in and out of possession was excellent, but of course we need to learn from the second half. The individual errors we made can’t happen again.”
On Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa after they started on the bench against Barcelona: “Nick has had a lot of football this year, and just off the back of playing Chelsea I thought he played well. Yoane has had a big injury, I don’t think we’ve seen the best of him yet and hopefully that will come. I look at them independently and not together.”
Howe praised Sunday’s visitors: “Sunderland have had a very good season, I know from personal experience the jump from Championship to Premier League is big. I think they’ve handled that really well. I think we need to use the experience from the first game, all the emotion we felt which was really painful, we need to use that too.”
Asked whether his players are aware of the magnitude of their rivalry with Sunderland, Howe said: “The players will be in no doubt of the size of the game and I think reinforced by what happened earlier in the season. For any new player that wasn’t fully aware of how big the game is, they will now certainly be aware.”
You can listen to more from Eddie Howe on BBC Sounds here
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