Curle hopeful McCormack's injury is nothing serious

The midfielder, who played a key role in Town's opener at St James Park, gingerly made his way from the field after receiving treatment on 72 minutes.

Winger Egli Kaja took his place but McCormack didn't go down the tunnel and instead watched the rest of the game from the bench.

The 35-year-old, who's been an influential figure during Town's upturn in fortunes over the past couple of months, has battled his fair share of injury problems in recent seasons and missed the first two months of the current campaign with a hamstring problem.

Curle will be desperate to keep him fit ahead of the busy festive schedule and he's hopeful his injury sustained during Saturday's game is nothing major.

"It's me being protective of Alan McCormack," said Curle, whose side were beaten 3-2 at St James Park. "He felt a little bit of fatigue and felt something might happen.

"That's a red flag so it's a case of taking him off and we don't assess it during the game because we know potentially what could happen.

"But we'll settle it down, assess it on Monday in training and hopefully we've made the right decision and we've got him off at the right time."