Newcastle United predicted starting XI vs Leicester City as £104m trio recalled amid new injury blow
Newcastle United host Leicester City at St James’ Park this afternoon in what marks the start of a huge week.
Eddie Howe’s side have been unable to bat off accusations they only perform against the big six after they followed up the 3-3 draw with Liverpool by losing 4-2 at Brentford three days later.Overall, United are going through a difficult period with a run of two wins in 11 Premier League games seeing them slide to 12th in the table.”It’s been a good training week for us this week – a lot of returning to basics,” said Howe at his pre-match press conference. “The fundamentals of our performance weren’t quite right against Brentford. Basically our mentality to defend our goal wasn’t there – when you concede four goals in any game, there’s issues.”We look back at those goals individually and it’s not the cohesive defending that we’ve been used to really this season. We’ve been OK defensively, but the last two games obviously have conceded seven goals. That’s something we’ve needed to reflect on, we’ve worked on, and hopefully that will show.”
Howe will be forced into at least one change to his starting with goalkeeper Nick Pope expected to be out for a month with a knee issue. Meanwhile, Callum Wilson is again unavailable because of a hamstring issue that will keep him out until February.Despite their setbacks in recent weeks, the Magpies must use the next seven days as a turning point. After Leicester, they host Brentford for a place in the Carabao Cup semi-finals before travelling to Ipswich Town.But before all that, let’s look at the Newcastle starting XI we’re predicting to face the Foxes
