Borussia Dortmund double injury concern as Newcastle United preparations get off to worst possible start

While Newcastle travel to the Signal Iduna Park with a threadbare squad of just 16 senior squad members plus Under-21s players, Dortmund are sweating on the fitness of two players heading into the match.

Former Liverpool midfielder Emre Can is a doubt for the match while left-back Ramy Bensebaini has a thigh issue.

Reflecting on his squad’s injury status, Dortmund boss Edin Terzic said in his pre-match press conference: “It is unchanged. With Emre Can we have to look from day to day.

“He hasn’t been in training since the Newcastle game, so it could be tight.

“And Ramy Bensebaini we hope that things will work out for tomorrow. He has problems in the back of his thigh.”

While Dortmund’s injury concerns pale in comparison to Newcastle’s at the moment, the two clubs had very contrasting results in the league heading into the game.

The Magpies beat Arsenal 1-0 at St James’ Park while Dortmund lost 4-0 at home to Bayern Munich with England captain Harry Kane scoring a hat-trick.

“Saturday was very disappointing,” Terzic added. “We had big plans. On Sunday we were very honest with each other and discussed the mistakes in order to put a tick in the box. Now the next task awaits us tomorrow.

“We not only want to learn from Saturday’s game, but we also want to take last season as a warning. We lost against Wolfsburg after a set piece in November and experienced something similar in Gladbach three days later.

“That shouldn’t happen to us this year. We want to learn from last season and do better again as quickly as possible.”

Dortmund beat Newcastle 1-0 in the reverse fixture at St James’ Park last month.

“The lesson from the Newcastle game was that we can compete at this level with top performances,” the Dortmund boss continued.

“It was a wild opening phase, but we still held up against Newcastle’s attack. In the first half we played a very good game, both defensively and offensively.

“That was no longer the case in the second half. We want to do even better tomorrow.”