FEDERICO FERNANDEZ and Ryan Fraser will return to the Newcastle United squad for tomorrow's game at Leeds United.

Fernandez was one of the players to have contracted coronavirus at the end of last month, but he has posted two negative results in the last week and is able to return to the squad at Elland Road.

Fraser did not contract Covid, but he has been struggling with an injury that forced him to miss last weekend's win over West Brom.

He has been back in full training in the last couple of days though, and will return to the first-team fold tomorrow.

Newcastle boss Steve Bruce said: "One (of the players with Covid) is back - and that's Fernandez. He's tested negative, and I can say that because he confirmed himself that he's had the virus. But he's okay now.

"We were very light in that department at the weekend - unfortunately, it seems to be defenders where our big problems are. Feddy getting back is great, although I have to say I thought Isaac's (Hayden) performance was terrific, and that's definitely something that's given me food for thought.

"Ryan is okay - he's been out with injury, but he's trained now for the last week and a bit.

"He's obviously been interrupted because of the time we had away from the training ground, but he's fully fit and ready to go now, which is like a new signing for us because we've had to wait patiently. He will be involved."

Bruce will leave the selection of his starting line-up for tomorrow's game until the last possible minute as he wants to closely assess the fitness levels of the players who had recovered from Covid to be involved at the weekend.

He said: "I've got to be careful with the three lads that played on Saturday. The one thing we're seeing is fatigue more than anything else.

"We'll see how they are today, but with that in mind, I'm probably going to change two or three, that's for sure."