Newcastle United winger suffers knee injury as trio likely to miss Urawa Red Diamonds game

Garang Kuol, Joe White and Alex Murphy didn’t travel with the squad to Tokyo, despite being involved for last week’s trip to Adidas headquarters in Germany.

The three players would have been in line to feature in friendlies against Urawa Red Diamonds and Yokohama F. Marinos, however they have sustained injuries.

“With Garang, we're waiting to see what happened with him,” Eddie Howe told NewcastleWorld. “He's got a little bit of swelling in his knee so we're not sure if he'll be okay.

“Joe White is nursing a sore back so again we're assessing that one and Alex will be out for a couple of weeks with a hip problem.” 

Howe named a 29-man squad for Tokyo, all of whom trained on Tuesday with the exception of Alfie Harrison, Harrison Ashby and Cathal Heffernan.

Joe Willock, Sean Longstaff and new signing Lloyd Kelly missed Saturday’s 2-0 friendly win at Hull City as they work on their fitness. They are unlikely to play versus Urawa but expected to feature against Yokohama.

“I think you can expect to see them in one of the two games, probably more towards the Saturday, the second game, but all three trained today and trained well so they look in a good place,” Howe said.

Newcastle will also welcome back Bruno Guimaraes with the midfielder joining up to train with the squad for the first time this pre-season. The Brazilian was given extra time off after the Copa America.

Kieran Trippier and Anthony Gordon are the only two senior players yet to return after representing England at Euro 2024. 

Konnichiwa! Newcastle United are in Japan - and so too are NewcastleWorld!

Our Newcastle United writer Jordan Cronin is there all week, providing coverage of the tour, behind the scenes video and analysis from Tokyo. 

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