ANTHONY GORDON requires a scan on the groin injury that kept him out of Newcastle United’s 2-1 defeat at Chelsea this afternoon.

The Magpies winger suffered the injury in training on Saturday and, while he travelled to Stamford Bridge with the rest of the squad, he was not considered for selection.

He will have a scan in the next 24 hours to ascertain the extent of the muscular damage, but is a major doubt for both Wednesday’s Carabao Cup return game with Chelsea and next weekend’s Premier League home game with Arsenal.

“Anthony felt his groin yesterday in training,” said Newcastle boss Eddie Howe, whose side find themselves in the bottom half of the table as a result of their latest defeat. “We hope it’s not serious, but he’ll have to go for a scan, probably tomorrow.”

While Gordon was missing at Stamford Bridge, his fellow England forward, Cole Palmer, produced another virtuoso display that was a major factor in Chelsea claiming all three points.

Palmer caused Newcastle a succession of problems, and played a superb through ball to help set up Nicolas Jackson’s first-half opener before doubling Chelsea’s lead with a drilled low finish at the start of the second half.

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With Jackson comprehensively winning his personal battle with Dan Burn, Newcastle’s defence was unable to cope with the pace and power of the Chelsea attack.

“It was tough for us,” admitted Howe. “Palmer has that ability that, with whatever space he has, he’s able to wriggle out of tight situations, and then if he has too much space, he’ll kill you the other way.

“We didn’t deal with him particularly well in that opening period of the game, and Jackson gave us problems as well. But I thought we began to get a grip the longer the game went on, in that first half, and scored a really good goal. I thought the momentum was with us, but the start of the second half, from a technical viewpoint, was disappointing, and that ultimately cost us.”

Newcastle finished the stronger of the two teams, but having equalised towards the end of the first half, Alexander Isak passed up a glorious chance to claim a second leveller when he rounded Robert Sanchez. The Swede could have shot or squared for Joelinton, but instead he dallied on the corner of the six-yard box, enabling Chelsea’s defenders to crowd him out.

“You’re frustrated because you feel it’s a great chance to score,” admitted Howe, whose side have now gone five league games without a victory. “But whenever you slow something down and replay it, it looks clear. At the moment, Alex is moving at 100 miles-an-hour and has to make split-second decisions. Joey was there to tap it in, but it wasn’t to be for us.

“I thought Alex’s general game was very good. He scored a great goal for us, a very good team goal, and that will do him the world of good. He had a chance with a header, and in the last couple of weeks, I just think he’s starting to get the chances that his game deserves.”