Newcastle injury news: Latest Joelinton, Lewis Miley update from Eddie Howe before Qarabag Champions League clash

Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe has delivered a positive update on the fitness of midfielder Joelinton ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League knockout round playoff first leg against Qarabag FK.

The 29-year-old has missed the Magpies’ last six matches across all competitions since sustaining a groin injury in a 2-0 Premier League home defeat to Aston Villa at the end of January.

Joelinton recently travelled to Barcelona for treatment and the Brazilian is keen to make a swift return to the first-team fold.

Speaking about Joelinton prior to Newcastle’s 3-1 FA Cup fourth-round win at Villa last weekend, Howe said: “He’s doing really well. He's desperate to be back involved, as he normally is, but that's a great sign for us - that means he's feeling good about his body, and he's very positive."

Joelinton has since been spotted arriving in Azerbaijan with the Newcastle squad ahead of their UCL lash with Qarabag, with Howe confirming that the No.7 is “back” and available for selection.

Joelinton available to face Qarabag, but Newcastle without seven players

"Joelinton's back in the squad so that's a great boost for us. He's such an important player, such a big presence within our squad, such a real leader,” Howe said at a press conference in Baku on Tuesday afternoon.

"He trained yesterday and trained well, and felt really good. No one else from the missing list, I think, has travelled from the last game so we're missing quite a few players, quite a few real quality players as well. They're big misses for us, but we come in here good spirits from our last two games.

"We will play our strongest team in the sense that we will try and win the game. There'll be no thinking of the schedule ahead; this game, in isolation, is hugely important."

Newcastle’s injury list includes Lewis Miley, who remains sidelined with a knock to his thigh despite having made positive progress in his recovery.

"Lewy's made good progress in the last few days. We're quite happy with his progress,” said Howe. “He's had a number of scans; it came from a knock, which seems quite strange, but just a really bad dead leg gave some muscle disruption. As soon as that muscle is healed, which we think it is, now we can push him on."

Meanwhile, Sven Botman (back) and Yoane Wissa (knock) have not travelled with Newcastle’s squad to Baku and will recover from minor issues in the UK.

Bruno Guimaraes, who is sidelined for up to eight weeks with a hamstring problem, is also in the treatment room along with Tino Livramento (thigh), Fabian Schar (ankle) and Emil Krafth (knee), the latter of whom may have already played his final game for Newcastle.

UCL last-16 qualification would be “an incredible achievement” for Newcastle

After finishing 12th in the 36-team League Phase and narrowly missing out on a top-eight finish, Newcastle are bidding to reach the last 16 of the Champions League for the first time in their history after three previous group-stage eliminations.

"It means everything to us,” said Howe. “The opportunity for us to get to the last-16 of this competition would be an incredible achievement. We're trying to embrace it in that way and look at the excitement and the possibility than feel the burden of the pressure of the occasion.

“We want to turn these moments into history and into moments people talk about for a long time. There's a real excitement with this game."

Newcastle’s opponents Qarabag are considered underdogs for this two-legged playoff and suffered a heavy 6-0 defeat at Liverpool on matchday eight, but they did collect 10 points across their eight League Phase matches.