Howe issues injury update on Botman and Wissa ahead of Qarabag clash

We return to St James’ Park with a whopping 6-1 lead after last Wednesday’s demolition job in Baku, playing the first of FIVE straight home games after four in a row on the road.

Eddie Howe, alongside Jacob Murphy, has been speaking to the media this afternoon, offering an update on injuries and availability ahead of Tuesday night’s 8pm kick-off. Here’s what he had to say.

Eddie Howe has confirmed that we will have to wait until the day of the match to confirm whether or not Yoane Wissa and Sven Botman will feature against Qarabag.

Remaining typically coy and secretive over availability, Howe was optimistic that each man would be declared fit after the pair were spotted back in training on Monday.

“We hope they’ll be involved.

“We’ll see how they are when they wake up tomorrow but fingers crossed they will be.”

Howe was also asked about the potential absence of Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon, neither of whom was present in training this morning, to which Howe said:

“There were a few players that we just kept inside today, no real issue, four or five players I think we just wanted to look after.”

As we know, Malick Thiaw’s booking in the first leg means he will serve a one-game ban tomorrow night, ensuring he’ll be back for our last 16 clash against Barcelona or Chelsea.

That leaves us light on fit centre-backs, however, with Fabian Schar and Emil Krafth both absent, with the latter set to miss the remainder of the season ahead of knee surgery and has subsequently been replaced by John Ruddy in the UCL matchday squad.

Elsewhere, Tino Livramento is on track to return in early March, while Bruno Guimaraes isn’t expected back until April following a serious hamstring injury sustained in our 2-1 win at Spurs two weeks ago.

But without a lot of our first team stars, Tuesday’s game should be an excellent opportunity for the likes of Alex Murphy, Sean Neave and maybe even Leo Shahar and Seung-Soo Park to get some serious minutes.

Winning remains Howe’s focus however, even with such a significant advantage heading into tomorrow’s game, which may harm the idea we see some youngsters starts tomorrow. “Possibly, we will look at the squad. We want to win the game.”

“We’ll look at the squad and try to pick a strong team. We want to win the game, that’s the first target. In some senses we want to keep a good rhythm with the players.

“It’s a delicate balance between rotating the squad and making sure everyone’s fresh and also making sure players don’t lose rhythm and we don’t lose the good feeling we’ve had.”