Fit-again Youssouf Mulumbu to miss Norwich City’s Premier League trip to Newcastle

Mulumbu has not featured for the Canaries since breaking his foot in the final pre-season friendly against Brentford and Neil, speaking at Colney on Thursday afternoon, reiterated he has no plans to fast-track Mulumbu back into his first team squad at St James' Park.

Gary Hooper is also back in training after his ankle injury and Neil confirmed his international contingent have returned to Norfolk unscathed.

Wes Hoolahan trained with his club mates on Thursday morning after the heel problem originally suffered against Leicester prior to the break limited his involvement for the Republic of Ireland in their crucial Euro 2016 2-1 qualifying defeat to Poland last weekend.

'What happened was the game at home against Leicester when he came off in the first half we assessed him and he had a knock at the back of his heel but it was literally a kick, some swelling at the back of his heel,' said Neil. 'It settled down and he managed to play for Ireland and trained with us this morning. 95pc of them took part, we had one or two who sat out as a precaution just to make sure they recover from their games. The international boys are all fine.

'With Youssouf it is just a case of getting him up to speed now in terms of playing games. When a player has been out for so long you don't want to rush him back and risk re-injuring that injury or a different one. We will push Youssouf to the brink to get him fully-fit as quickly as possible. He has only featured in three training sessions with the squad, even though he has trained fully and we are probably looking to introduce him back into a game situation potentially next week.

'Gary rolled his ankle. It was quite a strange injury, it happened at the top of his ankle. It took a little bit longer than we expected but he has trained these past two days and he is closer than Youssouf because he hasn't been out that length of time.'