Newcastle United skipper Jamaal Lascelles is hopeful of taking one step closer to his dream of being the first captain to lift a major trophy since Bob Moncur in 1969.
Eddie Howe has not avoided using Newcastle's poor history in the competition to motivate his players with just one final appearance in the League Cup coming way back in 1976. But now only a virus hit Bournemouth side stand in their way of playing in this year's quarter-finals.
Lascelles told Chronicle Live: "Of course, you set yourself goals being a footballer and being a captain and mine is to try and lift something. This season would be the perfect season to do so, we've got all the tools to perform it's getting us to do that."
Bournemouth touched down on Tyneside with major selection concerns after 10 players suffered with a virus. Cherries boss Gary O'Neil said: "We’ve had a tricky last 10 days, a real bad virus that went through the group. Some of the boys have missed real, long spells with it – up to 10 days some of them have missed training, so it was a nasty one.
"I think we had eight to 10 missing at one point last week. And that has run over a little bit into this week. But we have enough available and I’m hopeful when we get there tomorrow things will look a little bit better and we can name a real, strong team."
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