Eddie Howe details Newcastle travel plans ahead of West Ham clash as Storm Eunice batters London
Newcastle United may have to draw up new travel plans ahead of their clash against West Ham at the London Stadium on Saturday.
A red weather warning has been issued for London on Friday [18 February] as Storm Eunice batters the nation, grounding flights and wreaking havoc on travel plans.
Newcastle kick-off against West Ham at 12:30pm on Saturday and as it stands, the Magpies are set to get a flight to the capital on Friday afternoon.
As quoted by BBC Sport journalist Alistair Magowan, Howe admits that alternative plans are being drawn up too.
“[Newcastle are] planning to fly down to London this afternoon, but we are prepared to travel by coach. We will wait and see,” said the Magpies manager.
Game in doubt?
We would not be shocked if Newcastle players cannot get down to London in time for the 12:30pm kick-off on Saturday.
As of the time of writing this, the weather in London isn’t too severe although it’s getting very blustery outside.
People in the capital are battening down their wheely bins with a red weather warning issued for parts of Friday and that could be a real problem for any flights into the south-eastern airports.
We’re not sure where Newcastle were planning to fly into but we saw earlier this week how Manchester City’s flight back from Lisbon was diverted from Manchester to Liverpool – and the weather wasn’t as severe as it’s meant to be now.
There’s a chance that Newcastle’s squad will get a bus down later on Friday because there’s no way Howe will want his men getting up early or doing overnight travel to London.
We’ll see what happens throughout the rest of the day but more and more plans are going to be grounded, trains are going to be cancelled and the traffic on the roads is bound to be treacherous and heavy.
In other West Ham news, a pundit is baffled by new talks with Mark Noble.