£40m Newcastle United star set to start v Liverpool after two-game injury absence

Joelinton is in line for a return to Newcastle United's starting XI for the New Year's Day visit to Liverpool (kick-off 8pm).

The Brazilian picked up a hamstring injury in the first half of the Magpies' 3-0 win at home to Fulham on December 16, which saw him miss the Carabao Cup quarter-final exit to Chelsea and the 1-0 away defeat at Luton Town.

Joelinton was named in the matchday squad for the 3-1 loss to Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day before being introduced for the remaining 20 minutes.

And Eddie Howe has hinted that the 27-year-old will start at Anfield after singling him out for high praise during his pre-match press conference.

"Whenever you lose a player of Joe's quality, or someone like him, without his quality in the team you realise how important they are, not that we needed confirmation of that," said the United boss.

"Sometimes it's felt harder, especially when you have the players we've got missing. Even in a 10-minute cameo [v Forest] he showed what he can bring. That fight in the middle of the pitch is something we missed in the game."

Newcastle head to Merseyside having lost six of their last seven matches. And to make matters worse, the club hasn't tasted victory at Anfield since 1994.

In three of the last five meetings between the two clubs, United have taken the lead but still lost. Last season, Alexander Isak put Howe's side in front but Roberto Firmino and a stoppage-time winner from Fabio Carvalho flipped the result on its head.

And at St James' Park in August, Anthony Gordon opened the scoring but Liverpool, down to 10 men after Virgil van Dijk's first-half red card, won via Darwin Nunez's late brace.

"There have been a couple of painful games against Liverpool, the one last season was particularly tough for us and this season wasn’t any easier," said Howe. "The positive is we performed really well in both those games and gave Liverpool a really good game.

"We need to be near-perfect in this game, it’s a really tough one for us, they’ve been performing really well, especially at home. The challenge is to re-find our best form and be mentally very strong."