Sandro Tonali could return from his worldwide ban at Nottingham Forest after the date for Newcastle’s Carabao Cup second-round tie at the City Ground was confirmed.
The Magpies will head to Nottingham on Wednesday, August 28 with the game, which kicks off at 8pm, being broadcast live by Sky.
Italy midfielder Tonali is serving a 10-month suspension after admitting breaching betting rules and has not played for the club he joined in a £55million switch from AC Milan in July last year since October.
A date has been set for our Carabao Cup clash with Forest. 🏆
— Newcastle United FC (@NUFC) August 19, 2024
Newcastle confirmed last week the 24-year-old would be available once again on August 28 following the expiry of his ban, which was imposed by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) for offences committed during his time in Italy.
Tonali, who scored on his debut in a 5-1 Premier League victory over Aston Villa, has made only 12 appearances for Newcastle and head coach Eddie Howe admitted on Friday he is understandably short of match fitness.
Howe said: “Physically, he’s very fit, he’s in a really good place, but he just hasn’t had the matches and the game sharpness that you can only really get from games.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here