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Eddie Howe has demanded his underachieving Newcastle players show their quality against the Belgian champions, Union Saint-Gilloise, in Brussels on Wednesday night.
“This will be a good challenge at a time in the season when we need to perform,” Howe said. “It will be an important game in our Champions League journey – and a tough one.”
Newcastle’s European odyssey began on a losing note at home to Barcelona two weeks ago amid a slow start to a season that has brought only one Premier League win. Howe’s players arrived here after Sunday’s bruising 2-1 home defeat by Arsenal with their manager demanding a response.
“The Arsenal game should be a motivator not a hangover,” he said. “We need to use that as motivation.”
Howe would not give an update on the knee injury that led to the England full-back Tino Livramento being carried off. Newcastle are seeking a specialist second opinion and the manager chose not to share the first consultant’s assessment. “That could be a mistake,” he said. “I’d rather wait.”
On a more encouraging note, the central defender Fabian Schär has recovered from concussion to return to the squad for a meeting with a sleeping giant reawakened.
Union SG – or Les Unionistes – won the Belgian league 11 times by 1935. It was 90 years until they triumphed again but now they have made it into the Champions League main draw for the first time.
Newcastle analysts at PSV a fortnight ago saw Union SG canter past their Dutch hosts, winning 3-1 with the Canada striker Promise David among the visiting scorers.
That performance in Eindhoven suggested Sébastien Pocognoli’s team have recovered from the loss of last season’s key midfielder Noah Sadiki and the free-scoring striker Franjo Ivanovic to Sunderland and Benfica respectively in the summer.
It is surely no coincidence that the art of selling and buying was seemingly perfected by Union SG in 2018. That was the year Tony Bloom, the Brighton owner, bought the then second-tier club. The need to comply with Uefa’s multi-club ownership rules dictates that Bloom is now a minority shareholder, but the player recruitment department continues to benefit from the data-led scouting he introduced.
Recent acquisitions include Kjell Scherpen, the former Brighton goalkeeper, and visiting fans may also recognise Kevin Mac Allister, the older brother of Liverpool’s and Argentina’s Alexis, and Union SG’s captain, Christian Burgess, once of Portsmouth.
The manager Pocognoli, too, is a familiar face for English audiences. The 38-year-old former Belgium left-back spent three seasons at West Brom from 2014 to 2017 and was loaned to Brighton in that time.
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As a coach Pocognoli, who is of Italian heritage, began making his name when managing Belgium Under-18s and, after turning Union SG into Belgian Pro League champions in his first season, is attracting admiring glances from some of Europe’s bigger clubs.
For now he seems content at Union SG’s listed art deco Joseph Marien Stadium, situated in attractive parkland in the Brussels suburb of Forest. Unfortunately that atmospheric old ground holds only 9,400 and does not meet Uefa’s seating requirements, so Newcastle will be hosted at the 21,599-capacity Lotto Park, home of Union SG’s city rivals Anderlecht.
Not that the venue change is likely to diminish the habitual vibrancy of a Union SG fanbase happy to mix sport and politics. The club’s supporters are known for their progressive and inclusive values and are no strangers to making stands against fascism and racism. Union SG’s unofficial motto is “Anti-fascist Unionist for life”.
Pocognoli is excited to showcase the talents of a team unbeaten in the league but a little apprehensive of a Newcastle side that, despite losing Alexander Isak, has a £70m forward in Germany’s Nick Woltemade.
“We’re ambitious,” said Union SG’s manager. “But also realistic. I’m not going to put a percentage on our chances against Newcastle but I expect a very physical match. It’s a real challenge; I’m curious to see how we do.”
Howe spoke of Woltemade’s “strong” start and described as “irrelevant” comments from Karl Heinz-Rummenigge, a supervisory board member at Bayern Munich, that Newcastle had been “idiots” to pay so much for Woltemade.
