Rafa Benitez has been boosted by good news on the injury front as two of his long-term absentees received positive feedback this week.
Florian Lejeune had a successful operation in Rome and is now expected to make a full recovery from a knee injury while Sean Longstaff is now walking freely without the aid of crutches or a support brace on his knee.
It means Benitez has a big squad to pick from for the weekend clash with Southampton.
He said: “I saw Longstaff today, he is walking around and that is good news.
"The rest of the players are fine.
"Florian Lejeune had the operation.
"Everything has gone well and as we were expecting.
"The time scale is that we will see how he is progressing in a couple of months and see how long he will take."
When asked how long Lejeune would be out for, Benitez said: "We have to give him time.
"We sent him to Rome to a specialist and he did a great job. He did a great job with the other knee. He has already started his rehabilitation so hopefully it will be quite quick.
“We were doing our research about injuries after an operation, and if you have both knees, the stats say it will be very hard for him to have the same injury.
"Now he should be stronger."
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