Newcastle United club captain Dan Burn has been ruled out for the start of the season after suffering an injury in training. The 6ft 7in defender faces a number of weeks on the sidelines, just weeks after starring for England at the World Cup.
Ankle injury in training
Burn was in contention to face Liverpool, but after just one pre-season game against Strasbourg, in which he played only 45 minutes before a rigorous warm-down after the match, he suffered an ankle injury in the build-up to the encounter with the Reds.
Newcastle have Sven Botman and Fabian Schar in contention to join Malick Thiaw in the heart of defence against Liverpool.
Burn's ambitions for the season
Speaking about life under Matthias Jaissle last week, Burn had said: "I think we started off so quickly with the project, it was such an upward trajectory, it was always going to go off a little bit, I think we probably exceeded expectations the first couple of years, but listen, this is a tough league, we had a disappointed season last season, obviously we did well in the Champions League.
"But we were disappointed we were 12th, so it would be to push on as much as possible, we want to be pushing for European places again, we didn't get that last season, we said we wanted to get back-to-back European qualification and we didn't, so for me I'd still want to be up there fighting."
Newcastle United will now have to cope without their captain for the opening weeks of the campaign, with the defender's absence set to test the squad's depth as they aim to improve on last season's 12th-place finish.
