Ryan Taylor will return to the Newcastle squad for the first time in 26 months ahead of Sunday's trip to Tottenham with his injury heartache over.
The utility man has spent more than two years battling his way back to fitness after originally damaging his cruciate ligament in a Europa League tie against Atromitos in August 2012, and then suffering a recurrence in April last year.
Manager Alan Pardew admits he was delighted to be able to include the 30-year-old's name on the list of those members of the squad travelling to the capital after watching his valiant fight to recover from the knee injuries at close hand.
He said: "Ryan Taylor should return this week, and I think if that's not an inspirational story to everybody here and everybody in football, because this is a guy who has had terrible, terrible bad luck with cruciate injuries and he has come back again.
"It was so pleasing to put his name on the teamsheet this week to travel. That's good news for us, because he is a very, very liked guy here.
"He's just a good person to have at the training ground. There's been a lot of talk this week about professionalism at training grounds and what people bring.
"What Ryan brings is a real good knowledge and a good understanding, and also professionalism to the training ground that can inspire others."
Despite his return to the first-team scene, Taylor is unlikely to be involved at White Hart Lane after only playing his first 90 minutes since the summer of 2012 for the club's Under-21s earlier this week.
However, Pardew will hope to see several members of his walking wounded in the starting line-up as he keeps his fingers crossed over a series of injury concerns.
The most significant is striker Papiss Cisse, who has not trained since last Saturday's 1-0 Barclays Premier League victory over Leicester because of a knee problem, although his manager insists it is not connected to the fracture which sidelined him towards the end of the last campaign.
Fellow frontman Emmanuel Riviere, as well as defenders Mike Williamson and Paul Dummett and midfielders Cheick Tiote and Sammy Ameobi, are also doubts, and the 53-year-old hopes for progress on several fronts over the next 24 hours.
Pardew said: "We have not got a crisis, but we have one or two we are kind of waiting for - Riviere, is he going to be available? Papiss, Cheick Tiote - and I'm not really going to be clear on any of that until tomorrow.
"But we have got players in the group to cope if they don't make it."
Source: PA
