Newcastle United team news: Fresh footage has shown Newcastle players in training ahead of Tuesday night’s Champions League match against Qarabag.
Newcastle United are looking to secure progress to the last-16 of the Champions League this week as they host Qarabag at St James’ Park on Tuesday (8pm kick-off).
The Magpies claimed a comprehensive 6-1 win over in Baku last week in what was the longest Champions League trip completed by an English club. It means Eddie Howe’s side simply have to avoid an unprecedented disaster in order to progress.
No side in Champions League history has ever overturned a five-goal deficit from the first leg with Howe set to make some changes to his side.
Newcastle United team news
One change, at least, will be forced with Malick Thiaw suspended for the match, having picked up his third yellow card in the Champions League during last week’s win in Azerbaijan.
Newcastle also have several injury absences with Bruno Guimaraes, Tino Livramento, Fabian Schar and Emil Krafth already ruled out.
Lewis Miley is also expected to miss the match due to a leg injury while Yoane Wissa and Sven Botman have missed the last three games but are thought to be closing in on returns from minor injury problems.
Botman was expected to be back involved for Saturday’s Premier League match against Manchester City but ended up being left out of the matchday squad along with Wissa.
Speaking after the 2-1 defeat at the Etihad Stadium, Howe said: “Yeah, we thought [Botman] was going to be available. He just didn't feel 100% right, so we didn't want to take any chances with him.
“We hope he'll be available on Tuesday, but that's not 100% clear at the moment.”
On Wissa, Howe said: “I don't think he'll be too far off for maybe the Qarabag game.
“[The injury] was in training and a nasty little knock, but I think he'll be fine.”
Howe is expected to provide a further update on the fitness of his squad in his pre-match press conference from 4:30pm on Monday afternoon.
In the meantime, Newcastle’s players have been pictured in training ahead of the Qarabag match - dropping some team news hints in the process.
Newcastle United training ground images reveal as key injury updates
As part of their training ground access ahead of Champions League matches, photographers were able to capture Newcastle in training ahead of the Qarabag match.
Botman and Wissa were both spotted taking part in training and will be expected to return to the matchday squad on Tuesday.
Youngsters Leo Shahar, Alex Murphy, Sean Neave and Park Seung-soo were also training with the first team. Shahar, Murphy and Neave have all be regulars on the bench recently, with Neave getting on the pitch to make his Newcastle debut in the first leg against Qarabag last week.
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