Newcastle United young trio called up for Saudi Arabia trip as 12 players ruled out
Newcastle United flew to Saudi Arabia on Friday morning for some warm-weather training.
Eddie Howe’s squad visit the home of their PIF owners for the first time since December 2022 when they beat Saudi Pro League giants Al Hilal 5-0 in the Diriyah Season Cup.
Newcastle will again be based in Riyadh and train at Al Awwal Park - the home of Al-Nassr, who are part-owned by PIF and boost star names such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane and Aymeric Laporte.
Because of the international break, Howe is without several of his first-team stars but has called some youngsters to help boost the numbers.
Both Lewis Hall and Anthony Gordon featured for England in their 3-0 win against Odysseas Vlachodimos’s Greece on Thursday night. Tino Livramento was an unused substitute.
Sandro Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes and Miguel Almiron were also in action. Tonali scored his first Italy in a 1-0 win in Belgium, Guimaraes played 82 minutes as Brazil were held to a 1-1 draw in Venezuela and Almiron helped Paraguay record a shock win over Argentina.
Meanwhile, Alex Murphy represented the Republic of Ireland under-21s as they lost 2-1 to Sweden.
Other international players Martin Dubravka, Alexander Isak and Lewis Miley play in the next couple of days. Dubravka and Isak face each other in Stockholm on Saturday but Emil Krafth won’t be present due to a broken collarbone. Meanwhile, Miley is set to make his England under-21s debut in Spain on Friday night.
All the aforementioned players will take part in a second international game, either on Sunday or early next week before returning to Tyneside as Newcastle prepare for the visit of West Ham United a week on Monday.
With training numbers low ahead of the trip to Saudi Arabia, among the under-21s players to be called up are Ben Parkinson, Jay Turner-Cooke and Ellis Stanton.
Parkinson made his Premier League debut as a late substitute against AFC Bournemouth last year. Turner-Cooke and Stanton are yet to make their senior debuts, although were part of the Newcastle side that lost heavily to the A-League All Stars in May.