Immediately after the match, Eddie Howe said: “It doesn’t look too good. I think he has a toe problem. He pushed off and felt something in his toe.
“Early signs are there’s probably an injury there, but we don’t know what it is at the moment.”
Barnes’ injury has since been assessed with Howe confirming on Tuesday that Newcastle’s summer signing faces ‘months’ on the sideline.
Howe said: “I think it’s an injury to a part of the foot, just below the toe. I think it’s quite a substantial injury
“We’ve had it scanned, we’re now waiting on specialist opinion on what to do next and whether there’s surgery involved, or not.
“I don’t think it was a tackle, I think it was just pushing off to run.
“It’s a very unusual injury – I won’t go too technical because I’m not medically qualified to do so, but yeah, it’s very unusual.”
The winger arrived at St James’ Park for a fee of £39million after joining from Leicester City.
That is despite the fact that Barnes has already been capped by England, though it came against Wales in a friendly and is not seen as a competitive clash.
Nevertheless, the Burnley-born ace is pondering whether to switch from Englishman to Scot.
According to The Times, Barnes believes that Scotland are on the ascendancy – as proved by their remarkable European Championship qualifying campaign.
A 3-0 victory over Cyprus on Friday night has preserved their perfect record in their group with five wins out of five – including a 2-0 victory over Spain.
It has put them on the brink of qualification to Euro 2024 while Barnes qualifies through his maternal grandparents, who are both Scottish.
Scotland are able to offer the 25-year-old a bigger role in the squad than Gareth Southgate can with England.
Jack Grealish, Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford and now Eberechi Eze are all ahead of Barnes in the pecking order.
The Newcastle star has one cap to his name with the Three Lions, a 14-minute cameo against Wales in October 2020.
But since then, Southgate has left the winger out of his thoughts and he was barely given a sniff despite his best season in front of goal last season with Leicester.
