Press conference confidential: Newcastle United injury blows, Joe Willock, transfer talk & midfielder exit

Will Joe Willock make his Newcastle United bow at Villa?

“If I’m being brutally honest, I would have liked him to have had a few more minutes under his belt in terms of playing in pre-season but that hasn’t been the case.

“Thankfully with Joe, he’s young and naturally fit. It’s good to have him around. He’ll be in the squad, that’s for sure.

“We’re delighted we’ve got him. He was our main target all summer because of what he gave us when he came here. He improved us immensely with his goals from midfield. Let’s hope he can carry that on tomorrow.

“The reason I went all-in on Joe Willock because it was pretty obvious to everybody the improvement he made to us.

“He was outstanding during his loan, we hope he can recapture that and give us something we know we haven’t had for a long time which was that legs, energy and ability to arrive in the box and score a goal.”

Will Newcastle United make any more signings before the end of the summer transfer window?

“We’re never going to say never.

“I didn’t think we’d be able to buy Joe the way we did. We broke all the rules trying to secure his signature.

“If somebody comes along who can help us, we will try and act.

“So far, we’ve got a decent balanced squad.”

Is the goalkeeper selection situation improving?

“We’ve got a problem with the goalkeeping situation at the moment where we are toying with the idea of naming four in the squad, which is basically unheard of.

“It’s a big concern for us.

“It’s not great when you’ve got your two most experienced goalkeepers struggling.

“Martin (Dubravka), unfortunately, the injury he had has become infected which will set him back another few weeks.

"Karl (Darlow) still hasn’t overcome the Covid situation he found himself in.

"It’s difficult for us at the moment. Those two are still a long way off.”

Where does the future of Matty Longstaff lie?

“The thing with Matty is, unfortunately, he picked up an awful thigh injury last year which kept him out for weeks and months. He was then sick himself.

“It might be a case of can we get him to go and play some games? He desperately needs games. He hasn’t played a lot in the last 12 months, I’m aware of that after shooting to fame in his debut season.

“We need him to go out and play somewhere maybe and if that happens then we’ll see what develops over the next 10 days or so.”

Were there any lessons learned from the opening day loss to West Ham?

“I was delighted with the way we played for an hour.

“For me, the penalty incident changes everything. We then go chasing the game and leave ourselves wide open, which is never great. That’s one thing we have to improve on.

“Defensively, we need to improve.

“We want to try and attack and score goals, but you are not going to be able to score twice every week to win football matches in the big leagues.”

What’s the injury situation like?

"We don’t think Jonjo (Shelvey) will make it, unfortunately.

"He had a calf injury during pre-season and this is his other one (calf). He won’t make it.

“The two goalkeepers are a long way off.

“That’s a concern for us. Freddie (Woodman) will play in goal again.”