Newcastle United call-up under-21s duo to Champions League squad as 12 players ruled out v BVB

Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe has called up under-21s duo Ben Parkinson and Lucas De Bolle for tomorrow’s Champions League tie against Borussia Dortmund.

The Magpies have a shortage of players available following a rotten run with injuries whilst dealing with the news of £52million summer signing Sandro Tonali’s 10-month ban.

Alexander Isak, Sven Botman, Elliot Anderson, Matt Targett, Harvey Barnes and Javier Manquillo missed Saturday’s 1-0 win against Arsenal in the Premier League, while Jacob Murphy and Dan Burn also went off injured in the same game.

None of the aforementioned players will return for the trip to Germany. And unfortunately for Howe, he is unable to name Emil Krafth and Matt Ritchie, who started last week’s Carabao Cup win at Manchester United, after they were left out of the club’s Champions League squad.

In the Champions League, 17 players can be named in the squad without any restrictions. Then, in order to name more players in their squad, clubs must include up to eight further homegrown players.

Of the eight homegrown players, at least four must be club-trained in order to name a full squad of 25. If a club is unable to fill the homegrown or club-trained player quotas, their squad sizes will be reduced accordingly.

While players born on or before January 1, 2002 do not need to be included in the 25-man squad, they do need to be included on the ‘B List’. Players such as Elliot Anderson and Lewis Miley fall into this category having played for United for an uninterrupted period of at least two years or three years including a one-year loan spell.

An unlimited number of players can be named on ‘B List’ and they can be submitted by midnight the day before a match in order for players to be eligible to play.

The Magpies only have three club-trained first-team players in Elliot Anderson, Sean Longstaff and Paul Dummett, meaning they could only name a ‘List A’ squad of up to 24 players, or 23 players with Anderson named in ‘List B’.

As a result, Krafth, Ritchie, Javier Manquillo and Mark Gillespie were left out of the squad when submitted in August.

In the midst of the selection shortage, Howe has handed call ups to Parkinson and De Bolle, as revealed on the club’s Instagram account which captured the pair boarding the team flight to Dortmund.