Gordon was forced off during the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg defeat at Manchester City on Wednesday night, with the Magpies head coach confirming the England international had a hamstring problem.<\/p>\n
United are back in league action against the Bees at St. James’ Park on Saturday evening (kick-off 5:30pm GMT) and Howe is optimistic that Gordon – as well as captain Bruno Guimar\u00e3es and midfielder Lewis Miley – could be fit enough to feature against Keith Andrews’ men.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the main talking points from Howe’s pre-match media briefing:<\/p>\n
On Gordon’s fitness…<\/p>\n
“No major update on Anthony. (There is) every chance he’ll miss this game coming up at the weekend but we hope it’s not a serious injury and he’ll be back pretty soon.”<\/p>\n
On Guimar\u00e3es and Miley’s recoveries…<\/p>\n
“Bruno’s getting closer. He did a training session on Wednesday when we were travelling. He felt pretty good, so I’ll see him today and fingers crossed he’ll be fit.<\/p>\n
“We’ll find out today (about Miley). I’m awaiting an update on him but again it’s not a serious injury and we hope he’ll be back very soon.”<\/p>\n
On Anthony Elanga…<\/p>\n
“He’s done a load of good things that could have led to goals so I was really pleased he got that reward of the goal – it was a great goal as well. <\/p>\n
“I was delighted for him, and hopefully that’s the start of many. It will also be a lift in his belief for himself and what he can contribute. There’s no doubting his ability – (it was) a really good thing for him.”<\/p>\n
On being back at home…<\/p>\n
“It’s a big week coming up. We need real focus on these next two games – Brentford at home and Tottenham away, two good games. <\/p>\n
“Being back at home after several away games is more than welcome, so it will be a nice feeling for us on Saturday.”<\/p>\n
On United’s recent run of form…<\/p>\n
“Losing is such a difficult feeling. You have to deal with the defeat, put it where you need to put it and learn from it. We’re trying to do that in a quick turnaround while acknowledging the strengths of our performances and also the areas we need to improve.<\/p>\n
“The main thing is the players entering the next game in a positive frame of mind. That’s so important, so how we deal with each defeat we’ve had in the last week has been crucial to our success going forward.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gordon was forced off during the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg defeat at Manchester City on Wednesday night,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-412744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}