Newcastle United team news: Eddie Howe provided an injury update on Yoane Wissa and Sven Botman after they returned to training ahead of Qarabag.

Eddie Howe expects Yoane Wissa and Sven Botman to be back involved for Newcastle United on Tuesday night after three games out.

The Magpies return to Champions League action as they host Qarabag at St James’ Park (8pm kick-off) looking to finalise progress to the last-16.

Newcastle beat Qarabag 6-1 in Baku last week and will simply have to avoid an unprecedented disaster in order to advance to the next stage.

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. The winners will face either Barcelona or Chelsea in the last-16 with the draw to be confirmed on Friday.

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Newcastle United team news

Newcastle will be without the suspended Malick Thiaw for the match while Bruno Guimaraes, Lewis Miley, Tino Livramento, Fabian Schar and Emil Krafth are already ruled out due to injury.

Wissa and Botman have missed the last three games for Newcastle due to minor injury issues but were spotted training on Monday ahead of the Qarabag match.

Speaking after the 2-1 defeat at Manchester City, 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.”

Providing a further update on the duo in his pre-match press conference on Monday afternoon, Howe said: “Yeah, we hope [they will be involved].

“We will see how they both wake up tomorrow, but fingers crossed they're both involved.”

Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali weren’t spotted on the grass on Monday despite no reported injury issues.

But Howe was quick to play down any injury concerns.

“There were a few players that we just kept inside today,” he said. “No real issues. Four or five players, I think, that we just wanted to look after.”

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Time for rotation for NUFC?

With a five-goal advantage, Tuesday’s match presents an opportunity for Howe to rotate his side significantly.

Alex Murphy, Leo Shahar, Sean Neave and John Ruddy are the only available players in the squad yet to start a game for the club. William Osula also hasn’t started a Champions League match despite coming off the bench on a few occasions.

But The Magpies boss remained tight-lipped on his team selection ahead of the games.

“Yeah, possibly,” Howe said when asked if some young players could start. “I think that we'll look at the squad and try and pick a strong team who want to win the game. 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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