‘He has problems’ - Borussia Dortmund sweating over fitness of £25m midfielder v Newcastle United

Borussia Dortmund will make late checks on two players for tonight’s Champions League clash against Newcastle United (kick-off 5:45pm).

Dortmund have been without former Liverpool midfielder Emre Can since he limped out of the previous meeting between the two sides, which the Bundesliga outfit won 1-0 at St James’ Park courtesy of Felix Nmecha’s first-half strike.

Can has been struggling with a knee issue.

Speaking at his pre-match press conference on Tuesday, Dortmund boss Edin Terzic said: “It is unchanged. With Emre Can we have to look from day to day. He hasn’t been in training since the Newcastle game, so it could be tight until tomorrow.”

Another concern for Terzic is Ramy Bensebaini. The left-back featured in the first game at St James’ Park but was an unused substitute for Saturday’s crushing 4-0 defeat to rivals Bayern Munich.

“At Ramy Bensebaini we hope that things will work out for tomorrow,” Terzic said. “He has problems in the back of his thigh.”

On bouncing back from the defeat to Munich, Terzic said: “Saturday was very disappointing. We had big plans. On Sunday we were very honest with each other and discussed the mistakes in order to put a tick in the box. Now the next task awaits us tomorrow.”

“We not only want to learn from Saturday’s game, but we also want to take last season as a warning. We lost against Wolfsburg after a set piece in November and experienced something similar in Gladbach three days later. That shouldn’t happen to us this year. We want to learn from last season and do better again as quickly as possible.

“The lesson from the Newcastle game was that we can compete at this level with top performances. It was a wild opening phase, but we still held up against Newcastle’s attack. In the first half we played a very good game, both defensively and offensively. That was no longer the case in the second half. We want to do even better tomorrow.”