Eddie Howe on Sandro Tonali's Potential Return for Fulham Match

Eddie Howe is refusing to rule out a late-season twist for Sandro Tonali.

The Newcastle United manager revealed the Italian midfielder could yet feature on Sunday at Fulham, despite limping out of last weekend’s win over West Ham with a hamstring problem in what was billed as an ominous setback.

“Sandro, potentially, will be available,” Howe said, offering a cautiously upbeat bulletin ahead of the club’s final Premier League outing of the campaign. “We will look at him again today. We don’t think it is anything serious.”

It is the kind of news Newcastle needed. The trip to Craven Cottage carries weight: a chance to lock in a strong finish, to underline a revival that has gathered pace since their last defeat, away to champions Arsenal in April.

Osula’s emergence fuels late surge

That turnaround has been driven by a sharper edge in attack, and nobody has embodied it more in recent weeks than Osula. The forward struck twice in the 3-1 victory over relegation-threatened West Ham, a performance that left Howe purring over both the present impact and the future promise.

“He is at a really good age,” Howe said. “Lots of things to continue to work on, there are lots of untapped areas we can develop.

“The ceiling in his development is really high. He has the raw ingredients, the physical profile too.”

Those “raw ingredients” have arrived at just the right time. Newcastle’s season had sagged, the energy of early months drained by injuries and inconsistency. Then the form flipped. Results tightened up, the football with the ball improved, and the mood inside St James’ Park shifted.

“It was great to win our last home game,” Howe added. “That left us all with a great feeling. We want to end the season on a real high.”

One more push at Fulham

Newcastle head to Fulham with momentum and a clear sense of what they want the final 90 minutes to look like. This is not a dead rubber in Howe’s mind; it is a marker.

“We hope to continue the upturn in our recent performances, upturn in our in-possession play, we want to end the season high, it is an important match for us.”

The equation is simple enough. Keep Osula firing, manage Tonali’s fitness wisely, maintain the renewed fluency in possession. One more strong display, and a turbulent campaign will close not with a whimper, but with a statement about where this team intends to go next.