JOE COLE slammed Newcastle’s medical team after several players were forced off with injury against West Ham.
Newcastle have been plagued by injury issues all season long with the likes of Nick Pope and Callum Wilson long-term absentees.
Kieran Trippier, Sven Botman and Joelinton were also unavailable for the visit of West Ham, but things went from bad to worse for Eddie Howe during the 90 minutes.
First captain Jamaal Lascelles went down after just 17 minutes and appeared to be in a great deal of agony.
He was substituted and the Hammers took advantage as they equalised through Michail Antonio just four minutes later.
West Ham then added a second deep in first-half stoppage time and went 3-1 ahead shortly after half-time.
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Howe was then dealt another blow through the injury to Tino Livramento in the 56th minute.
The defender was subbed off for Miguel Almiron, who remarkably suffered an injury of his own and had to be taken off just ten minutes later.
But his replacement Harvey Barnes – who missed months of the campaign through injury – invigorated his side and slotted home an equaliser before firing in a brilliant winner from distance.
It was a defiant display from the Magpies considering their injury woes, which left TNT Sports commentator Joe Cole slamming the club’s medical team.
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Commentator Darren Fletcher asked Cole about the situation, adding: “[I’ve] never seen anything like it.”
Cole responded saying: “I’ve played in teams with injury crises but this is a bit more than what I’ve ever seen.
“But what I will say is it’s never really bad luck. It’s always to do with how training it, the methodology, overtraining players, there’s an art to it.
“The problem at football clubs is you get lots of people from a sports science background, strength and conditioning and they’ve all got an opinion.
“With situations like this it’s too many chefs spoiling the broth – players are going down left, right and centre.
“I think it’s lazy to call it bad luck. For players like Almiron to come on and pull a hamstring after ten minutes, I’ve been in that situation, when you aren’t primed and right to be playing because you’ve either done too much in the gym or too much on the pitch.
“We need to do better as football clubs at protecting players.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
