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Newcastle United’s horrendous history with injuries “is a worry” but the coaching staff are “trying to get to the bottom” of the problem, admits Paul Simpson.

The Magpies are joint top of the so-called Premier League ‘injury table’ alongside Liverpool, with 10 United players currently receiving treatment.

Even Rob Elliot, who put in a heroic man-of-the-match display at AFC Bournemouth last weekend, is nursing an on-going thigh problem and missed the first leg of the Republic of Ireland’s Euro 2016 play-off against Bosnia-Herzegovina as a result.

However, the injury situation is starting to gradually thaw and Steve McClaren hopes to welcome back some of those on the treatment table in the coming weeks.

The United head coach says that Jack Colback is “progressing really well” and could be back by early December, Emmanuel Riviere has had a couple of “little setbacks” but is not too far away from a return, while Karl Darlow should ease United’s goalkeeping crisis within the next fortnight.

Steven Taylor, however, is unlikely to return before the turn of the year, while Rolando Aarons’ ankle injury could keep him out for a couple of months.

McClaren gave this update on the fitness of his charges: “Steven (Taylor) will be fighting to play any part in December, but we’re probably looking more at the start of next year with him.

“Manu (Riviere) keeps having little setbacks and niggles, but we’re hoping we might get him back into training in the next week or two.

“Jack (Colback) is progressing really well, and we’re delighted with him so far.

“Karl Darlow’s been out on the field, and we’re expecting him to start taking part in training next week.

“Unfortunately, Rolando (Aarons) is still on crutches so we’re not really sure how long that will take.

“At the moment, we’re just trying to focus on the fit ones.”

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Though McClaren’s assistant head coach Simpson echoes his boss’ mantra of ‘focusing on the fit players’, he has revealed that United are actively looking into how exactly they can address the injury situation.

Various regimes over the past decade have tried and failed to limit the colossal number of injuries that Newcastle suffer from every year, but Simpson is adamant that work is being done to change things.

He does accept, however, that players like Aarons appear to be susceptible to repeated soft-tissue problems - and he also believes that some injuries, like Tim Krul rupturing his cruciate knee ligament, are merely brought about via “sod’s law”.

Speaking on BBC Newcastle’s Total Sport, Simpson said of Newcastle’s injury history: “It is a worry but we look into everything.

“We’re looking into the training that we’re doing, we’ve been looking at the rehab we’re doing, but unfortunately it’s not just us – I think it’s quite frightening the number of cruciate injuries that have occurred this season, up and down the country.

“You know you go to Bournemouth and they had a horrendous run of injuries and some bad ones as well.

“Now we’re getting them and we’re looking at the players who are getting injured and unfortunately there’s a lot of them who have got quite a history of getting injured.

“Unfortunately for people like Rolando (Aarons), he seems to have a problem with (his) hamstrings.

“But it’s something which we’re trying to get to the bottom of and we’re looking to look into everything we possibly can to work out why we’re picking up the injuries.

“But sometimes it’s just sod’s law and there’s nothing you can do and you’ve just got to deal with it and that’s where we are at the moment.”