Newcastle United £60m selection dilemma as trio handed surprise Champions League call-up

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Newcastle United head into Tuesday night’s Champions League match at Borussia Dortmund with a significantly depleted squad.

At least 12 first-team players are set to be ruled out for the group stage clash with head coach Eddie Howe dipping into Newcastle’s Under-21s squad in order to pad out his bench.

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Youngsters Lewis Miley, Ben Parkinson and Lucas De Bolle have made the journey to Dortmund for the match.

Newcastle will be without Dan Burn, Jacob Murphy, Matt Targett, Sven Botman, Alexander Isak, Elliot Anderson, Harvey Barnes due to injury, Sandro Tonali due to a ban and Matt Ritchie, Emil Krafth, Javier Manquillo and Mark Gillespie not included in the squad.

Despite Newcastle’s availability crisis, Howe admitted he wouldn’t have things ‘any other way’ amid a busy fixture schedule.

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“You just see who’s fit and who’s available,” Howe said. “We’ve added a couple of younger players to the squad but we’ll go with that, that’s all we can do.

“You’re always going to get injuries, the problem with the injuries for us is that a lot of them are on the longer-term scale which means there’s no relief coming around the corner which means every game you play, you’re in a dangerous position.

“We wouldn’t have it any other way and we’ve really enjoyed the games that we’ve had it’s just that they’ve come at a cost recently with injuries you can’t prepare for.

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“Dan going up for a header and falling on his back, that could happen at any moment and unfortunately for us it’s happened at the wrong time.”

Burn’s injury against Arsenal forced Newcastle to play the second half with Kieran Trippier at left-back and Tino Livramento at right-back - something Howe is considering once again on Tuesday night.

“It’s an option for us,” he added. “I’m not going to say with any certainty what we’re going to do because I’m not going to give my team away but it’s certainly an option we have.

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“Lewis [Hall] will be another option for us. I go back to the Manchester United game where he started really well and was a real attacking option for us and scored a great goal. He’s in a really good place.”

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