Newcastle United head coach Steve Bruce has confirmed that Magpies striker Andy Carroll only trains for two days a week at the moment.
The 30-year-old rejoined his hometown club on a free transfer this summer but brought with him myriad injury problems over the years. As a result, Bruce has got the England international on a tailored training schedule.
“Andy has got his schedule now,” he said, as per The Chronicle. “He trains for two days. On Tuesday we had a big physical day where his stats were great. Thankfully there is no reaction to his ankle the next day.
“He trained again on Thursday and he comes to the fore. Hopefully in the next week or two weeks he will be in a position where we can start him.”
OPINION
This is exactly what Newcastle should be doing with Carroll. This is a man who has had arguably more injury problems than anybody else in English football over the past five or so years, stretching back even to his original Newcastle days. The problem increased at Liverpool and was then exacerbated at West Ham United to the point that they gave up on him at the end of last season. It makes perfect sense, then, that the Magpies have got him on his own personal training schedule. As per Transfermarkt, the England international has missed 1,234 combined days due to injury between January 2011 and June 2019. That is a humungous period of time, and so you have to treat someone like that with more care and give them more rest time than your average player. That’s what Bruce is doing with Carroll, and the Geordie-born striker is seemingly set to be ready to start games again within the next fortnight.
