Newcastle winger Harvey Barnes is facing months on the sidelines after suffering a foot injury during the 8-0 win at Sheffield United on Sunday.
The £38million summer signing was forced off after 12 minutes at Bramall Lane with the game still goalless.
And Eddie Howe has confirmed that Barnes is set for an extended spell in recovery.
‘It's an injury to a part of the foot just below the toe, I think it's quite a substantial injury,’ said the Newcastle boss.
‘We've had it scanned, we're waiting now for a specialist's opinion on what to do next, whether there's surgery involved or not. I don't want to put a time on it until we get confirmation from the specialist, but I think it will be months rather than weeks.’
Barnes went down off the ball before calling for treatment, and Howe added: ‘I don't think it was a tackle, it was just pushing off to run, a very unusual injury. I won't go too technical because I'm not medically qualified to do so, but yes, very unusual.’
Barnes was making only his second Premier League start since joining from Leicester, but could now face a battle to feature before December.
Howe said: ‘He was down after the game because he knew it wasn’t a normal injury, where you feel a muscle and think that might be one or two weeks.
'This was a slightly more complex issue and I think he probably feared the worst, because there was no one around him and it was one of those mechanisms where he knew it wasn’t quite right.
‘There’s no doubt he’ll be disappointed because he was very keen to show his value and worth, and Sunday was an opportunity to do that. But whatever the injury is, we’ll support him and we know he’s a top quality player and he still has a massive part to play.’
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