Chris Wood says he has to simply "bide his time" at Newcastle United with Callum Wilson in red hot form and the arrival of £63million Alexander Isak beefing up competition at St James' Park.
Wood is likely to get a chance to impress in this evening's League Cup clash at home to Crystal Palace with a place in round four up for grabs. After a night of drama on Tuesday Premier League Brentford were dumped out on penalties by Gillingham while Bristol City were beaten by League One minnows Lincoln City.
It leaves scope for a tie against lower league opponents in the next stage for Newcastle but they have to get past Palace first. For Wood it his platform to show Eddie Howe what he can do from the start.
After struggling for starts, Wood told Chronicle Live: "That's just the way football is at the moment. I have to wait and bide my time, Callum Wilson is doing absolutely excellently up top and I'm here to help, be around and ready to go when the team needs me."
Wood netted in the 4-1 win at Southampton but the general mood in the camp was Newcastle were nowhere near their best. Wood reflected: "When we play games like that and we're not as good as we normally are, we're a little bit off par, grinding out games is what we need to do. It's nice that we can grind out a game but be clinical enough to put two or three more goals away in the second half."
Wood got a little longer on the field than normal after a series of cameos from the bench. Wood said: "It's a much better situation to be in for myself obviously. I would never want anything to happen to anybody injury wise but it's nice to play more of a game than I've been used to."
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