Newcastle United v Qarabag: Champions League football returns to St James’ Park this evening - and likely not for the last time this season.

Newcastle United host Qarabag in the second leg of their Champions League knockout round play-off tie at St James’ Park on Tuesday night (8pm kick-off).

The tie marks the furthest distance between two sides in a Champions League knockout fixture. But that didn’t deter Newcastle last week as they were able to secure a 6-1 win in Baku, Azerbaijan in the first leg.

Four goals from Anthony Gordon and another from Malick Thiaw put The Magpies 5-0 up at half-time before Elvin Cafarguliyev pulled a goal back for the hosts, making history as the first Azerbaijani footballer to score in a Champions League knockout fixture.

But it was nothing more than a consolation on the night as Jacob Murphy restored Newcastle’s five-goal advantage heading into the second leg with his first strike in the competition.

No side has ever thrown away a five-goal first leg advantage in the Champions League and Newcastle are determined not to change that on Tuesday night with head coach Eddie Howe hinting that he will name a strong side.

“I think that we'll look at the squad and try and pick a strong team who want to win the game,” Howe said. “So that's the first target is to win.

“And in some senses we want to keep a good rhythm with the players. I think it's a really delicate balance we've got between rotating the squad and making sure everyone's fresh to winning the game and also making sure players don't lose rhythm.

“And we don't lose the good feeling that we've had. So I'll try and pick the right team, taking all the information into consideration in the game.”

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Qarabag pre-match preparations

While Newcastle weren’t impacted by their travel plans to Azerbaijan, which saw them fly directly from Newcastle to Baku and train at the Tofiq Bahramov Republican Stadium ahead of the game. Preparations that clearly worked well for Howe’s side.

But Qarabag have adopted a different approach which could make an already very difficult tie for them just that bit harder.

Instead of travelling well in advance and training at St James’ Park, Qarabag opted to train in Baku before flying directly to Newcastle on Monday afternoon. The club’s plane arrived at around 10:40pm at Newcastle Airport, less than 24 hours ahead of kick-off.

Given that 10:40pm in Newcastle is essentially 2:40am on the day of the game for the Qarabag players still on Baku time, it’s certainly an unorthodox approach from the Azerbaijani champions for the furthest Champions League knockout trip in history.

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Eddie Howe on Qarabag

Only one member of the Azerbaijani media was present for Howe’s pre-match press conference at St James’ Park on Monday afternoon to ask the Newcastle boss about Qarabag.

Howe responded: “I was really impressed with Qarabag having watched them a lot in the build-up to [last week’s] game.

“I really like the forward, [Camilo] Durán. I thought he has been a real threat for them, running in behind with his pace. A real eye for goal.

“[Marko] Janković in midfield I think is a really good footballer. So I think they've got some really good players.

“I think the first game was about us being our best. I think we made it difficult for them. But we haven't underestimated them in the build-up to this game. We prepared really strongly because we know they're a really good team.”

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