Newcastle boss Steve Bruce says he has enough players to pick a team for Saturday’s visit of West Bromwich but a ‘big chunk’ will still be missing because of Covid-19.
The Magpies have been hit by the virus in recent weeks and last Friday’s trip to Aston Villa was postponed.
This weekend's game against West Brom was also in doubt earlier in the week when training was cancelled on Monday.
But, after two rounds of negative tests and a return to training on Tuesday, Bruce is able to field a side.
‘If you’d asked me last Monday, I wouldn’t think this game would have been on,’ he said. ‘But everyone has been tested twice since Monday and proved negative.
‘We’ve been able to train properly and been back to normal for a few days now. I’ve got enough to pick 11 and hopefully win us the match.
‘We hope we have curtailed the virus now. It certainly looks that way with the negative tests on Monday and Wednesday. We’ve got far more available than we thought we would have last Monday.
‘We’ve got a few back in the squad who have had it and I didn’t think they would be back so quickly. So we’ve got enough to pick a team.
‘It was a significant number (who had the virus), and we will be without a big chunk of players, that’s for sure.’
Bruce also confirmed two of his staff were still very poorly, as he added: ‘Two members are staff are poorly and sick at the moment. We really hope they are okay.
‘It’s quite remarkable how quickly it can spread. We had four one day, then five another, ridiculous numbers. It hits home just what this thing is.
‘But no (we haven’t got to the bottom of how it started). That’s difficult. We don’t really know how it spread that week. Is it the internationals coming back? We can’t prove anything at all.’