ALEXANDER ISAK will return to Newcastle United’s starting line-up for tomorrow’s home game with Brighton, but Eddie Howe will continue to adopt a cautious approach to Callum Wilson’s return from long-term injury.

Isak has missed the Magpies’ last two league games with a broken toe, but having withdrawn from international duty with Sweden, the striker has resumed full training this week. As a result, he will return to lead the line against Brighton.

Wilson has also been back on the training pitch this week, but having missed the whole of pre-season because of a combination of back and hamstring issues, the 32-year-old will be eased back into action over the course of the next few weeks.

“Alex has trained, and trained well,” said Howe. “He trained at the start of this week and has looked good, so at this moment in time, he would be in contention (for the Brighton game).

“The toe is fully healed, although we do have one training session to go. We felt the toe wasn’t a big injury when he did it, he just couldn’t tolerate the pain. Now, he’s in a lot better place and has trained well.”

“Callum has also trained, but with Callum, we’ll continue assessing him day by day. We’ve got to try to make the right decision as to when we enter him into the group. It’s a day-by-day thing, and we’re obviously in communication with him, but the thing with Callum is, when we get him back, we want to try to keep him back. We’ve got to make the right call.”

Kieran Trippier will not be involved in tomorrow’s game, having suffered a hamstring injury in the draw with Everton that is likely to keep him sidelined for another two or three weeks.

“Kieran will miss out for this game,” confirmed Howe. “He’s picked up a hamstring problem. We don’t think it’s necessarily too serious, but probably enough to keep him out for a few weeks.”