Bournemouth suffer possible bombshell ahead of Newcastle United clash

A virus has spread through Bournemouth’s camp ahead of their trip to Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup this evening (kick-off 7:45pm GMT).

Eddie Howe welcomes his former club to St James’ Park vying for a place in the last eight of the competition.

Both clubs are expected to field strong sides, although for Cherries boss Gary O’Neil, that could depend on whether or not some of his players overcome illness.

“We’ve had a tricky last 10 days, a real bad virus that went through the group,” O’Neil said. “So we’ll have to make some last-minute calls on quite a few.

“Some of the boys have missed real, long spells with it – up to 10 days some of them have missed training, so it was a nasty one.

“I think we had eight to 10 missing at one point last week. And that has run over a little bit into this week.

“But we have enough available and I’m hopeful when we get there tomorrow things will look a little bit better and we can name a real, strong team.”

The two sides met on Tyneside in September as Bournemouth held United to a frustrating 1-1 draw. Philip Billing opened the scoring before Alexander Isak rescued a point from the penalty.

“I think we have a good chance of winning the game,” O’Neil added. “We’ve done some real good work.”

Howe too will have some decisions of his own to make in terms of team selection with the likes of Nick Pope, Kieran Trippier, Callum Wilson, Bruno Guimaraes and Fabian Schar only returning from the World Cup last week.