Newcastle United are unlikely to recall Matt Targett from his loan despite a growing injury crisis at full-back, according to Chris Waugh in Tuesday’s The Athletic mailbag.
When asked if a recall clause
existed in Targett’s deal, Waugh said he was “not entirely sure” but made clear that a return would make “little sense” for Newcastle under the current circumstances.
The club’s 25-man Premier League squad is full, and they have also already named their 21 senior players for the “A List” for the Champions League, a reduced quota due to the lack of homegrown players in the squad.
Alas, there is no room for bringing Targett back until January at the earliest, and that’d mean leaving out of the roster someone already in it. Waugh wrote that “it would be a curious move to bring him back solely to play in the Carabao Cup.”
Newcastle allowed the left-back to go on a loan deal to Middlesbrough because he had slipped down the pecking order, becoming third-choice left-back at best behind Lewis Hall, Tino Livramento, and makeshift LBs such as Dan Burn and Kieran Trippier.
Targett did not start a single Premier League game last season, so it’s not like he was a vital piece in Howe’s puzzle, anyway.
While the simultaneous injuries to Hall and Livramento have left the Magpies a bit stretched, the truth is that Burn has more than made up for those absences, and bringing Targett back wouldn’t really solve many problems because of his unavailability and the timelines for the injured players’ returns.
