STEVE BRUCE will conduct an investigation into Newcastle United’s ongoing injury crisis after Paul Dummett and Dwight Gayle both hobbled out of the first half of their side’s 1-1 draw at Wolves.

The Magpies were already without nine injured players as they lined up at Molineux, but their problems continued to rack up with Dummett and Gayle both suffering hamstring issues.

Gayle’s problem is understood to be a recurrence of a previous problem, while Dummett’s injury was not to the same leg that had been troubling him last month.

Joelinton went down holding his groin in the first half, and while he struggled through to the end of the game, Bruce admits the Brazilian was unable to run properly throughout the second period.

Newcastle’s injury record under Rafael Benitez was impressive, but the current Newcastle boss insists he has not made any changes to the medical regime that was operating under his predecessor.

He will be asking his medical staff to account for the glut of problems, but regards the packed festive fixture list as the likeliest explanation for his side’s ongoing issues.

Bruce said: “I haven’t known anything like it. I thought it was going to be a repeat of what happened at home to Leicester, when we lost four players in 12 minutes. We’ve lost two players in two minutes here, and Jo should have come off. He played at half pace in the second half, but at least had the courage to carry on when we’re down to the bare bones.

“It’s ridiculous. I’ve never known anything like it in my time in football. We think we’re getting two or three back, and all of a sudden we lost three or four at Rochdale last week and another two today, possibly three. We’ll see what we’ve got tomorrow.

“I’ve been around the block lots of times, and all the medical staff is the same medical staff that was here all last year. I didn’t replace or take in any new medical staff. Nothing has changed in that respect.

“Of course, we’ll go into it in depth, and I’ll ask a few questions as to the reasons why. Are we just unfortunate, or is there a reason why? I’ve got my own ideas – I keep telling everybody that it’s the amount of the games we’ve played. When you play people fatigued, even though we’ve had a free week this week, you risk that trouble. But it’s not normally as severe as what we’ve got.”

Bruce does not expect Dummett, Gayle or Joelinton to be available for Tuesday’s FA Cup replay with Rochdale, although skipper Jamaal Lascelles should return in four days’ return.

The Newcastle boss might have to call up some academy players to make up his squad for the Rochdale game, but is adamant the injury crisis will not prompt him to make any panic buys in this month’s transfer window.

He said: “I won’t just sign bodies. If there’s somebody who can help us and make us better, then we’ll try to act. But I’m not just going to sign bodies. I think it would be wrong for the club just to bring in more bodies. I won’t do that.

“We’ve still got enough to carry on at the minute, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we have a got a break, we’ll get our big hitters back because we obviously need them.”

Bruce was pleased with his players’ resilience as they ground out a point, although he was forced to concede there was a lack of attacking threat in the final third.

He said: “We certainly scored a great goal, a really top-class goal. But unfortunately after that, we didn’t really carry the threat that we had at the start of the game. We lost Dwight and Jo is basically lame, but he carried on. He should have come off but we couldn’t really make the substitution because of what had happened the week before and the threat of going down to ten men.

“You thank your goalkeeper because he’s made two great saves, and with the problems we’ve got, I think they deserve it. They’ve run a million miles and the resilience was there for everybody to see. We lacked that bit of quality at the top end of the pitch again, but I couldn’t fault their effort and endeavour.”