Hull City head into the weekend in confident mood, with their unbeaten start to the Premier League season looking increasingly likely to stretch another week — helped in no small part by a damaging injury update from their opponents Newcastle United ahead of Saturday's clash at St James' Park.

Three new injury concerns for Newcastle

Newcastle manager Matthias Jaissle has confirmed that three players are doubts for the match, adding fresh headaches to an already stretched squad. Spanish midfielder Nico Gonzalez was withdrawn during the first half of Monday's defeat to Leeds United after suffering a blow to the head.

Jaissle was careful to frame the substitution as a precautionary measure. "With Nico, as a manager and we as a club, we have the responsibility if he has that knock out feeling as we all saw," he said. "We have to be responsible to take him off the pitch even though he looked fine then. But there are rules for that occasion. Independent of how important it is to win a match, we are all human beings, and we take that seriously."

The prognosis for winger Anthony Elanga is considerably less encouraging. The Sweden international sustained an injury between matches, and Jaissle signalled that the situation could keep him sidelined for an extended spell. "The injury doesn't look good. We need to investigate how serious it is. Elanga is struggling with injury but at the moment it does not look that good," the Newcastle boss admitted.

Midfielder Jacob Ramsey also faces a race against time after picking up a thigh problem in the warm-up ahead of Monday's game. "He felt his thigh in the warm-up so he was not able to play," Jaissle explained. "It does not look good for the weekend at the moment."

Gonzalez, Elanga, and Ramsey join a lengthy absentee list that already includes Joelinton, Dan Burn, and William Osula.

Hull City's unbeaten league run continues

Hull arrive at St James' Park having drawn their last two Premier League fixtures — against Aston Villa and Chelsea — and despite suffering a 1-0 Carabao Cup exit to Sunderland last week, their league record remains intact.

Newcastle, by contrast, suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of Leeds United on Monday, a result that laid bare the growing pains of a squad still finding its shape under Jaissle. The Magpies are searching for a first league win in three matches, and the mounting injury toll makes that task considerably harder.