Exclusive:D-Day for Hibs skipper Joe Newell set as 'full throttle' midfielder eyes first game in TEN months
Latest injury news as Alasana Manneh also nears return to action
Hibs skipper Joe Newell is scheduled to take another major leap on the road back to first-team football, with a bounce game being arranged to give the midfielder his first taste of match action since last December. And the experienced Englishman is likely to be joined by Alasanna Manneh as manager David Gray gets within touching distance of having a fully fit squad.
Club captain Newell hasn’t featured in a Hibs jersey since December 29, with abdominal surgery forcing him into a long and frustrating programme of rehab. But he’s been back in full training – with zero restrictions – this week.
Gray sees next month’s international break, which begins immediately after St Mirren away on November 8, as an ideal opportunity. With the African section of World Cup qualifying now in the play-off stages, he won’t be without all of his international players – and aims to capitalise on the bigger than usual numbers at East Mains.
Newell played in Boxing Day win over Hearts at Tynecastle
Revealing the next step for Newell after the thick end of ten months out, Gray said: “We're going to have a bounce game. That will be in the international break, week one of the international break.
“So we've got free time, so it'll be in that week. Which will be good because there'll be boys who maybe need a game.
“Obviously, there's a couple of games before you get to there so you never know, you're always forward thinking. But that should be the next big thing for Joe.
“I don't think as many of the internationals are away on this trip, with the African teams at a different stage, so we’ll have more bodies here. Having more people to work with means we can do a lot more for the guys who maybe need game time. I'd like to see Joe and Alasana be ready for that game as well.
“We’ve had to use the international breaks to reset a bit, this season, because we had such a busy schedule at the start. But also because we had so few bodies around, maybe only eight or nine first-team players, there wasn’t much point in taking on a game.
“There are obviously the development games but you can only play three over-age players at the same time. So we’ve been limited in what we could do.
“There was no real value in trying to take fixtures on during the last break. But this one is a good opportunity for the boys who need it during that break.”
‘No restrictions’ on training for midfielder
Detailing the latest progress made by Newell, Gray revealed: “He's had probably nearly two weeks of training. But this has been the first week really where there's been no real restrictions on him.
“So we've not been looking after him at all. But that I mean he's just full training.
“So there's not a strong onus from the physio department saying: ‘You can't do this or that …’ or asking us to look after him in certain situations. So it is very much full throttle for him.
“But as a result of that, he's probably feeling all of his body at the minute! Just with the fact that he's been out for so long, his actual injury feels good and strong, which is positive.
“It's just about getting that volume into him now, that intensity that we've been training at, because he’s been out for a while. It's quite hard to catch that up. So we need to keep working hard with him.
“But he's looking better. He felt as good as he's felt today, which is a real positive. So he's in a good place and he's going in the right direction.”