£55m player starts as Eddie Howe makes two changes - Our predicted Newcastle United starting XI to take on Union Saint Gilloise

Newcastle United take on Union Saint-Gilloise on Wednesday evening in the Champions League - Kick-off in Belgium is at 5:45 pm UK time, with the game being shown live on TNT Sports.

It feels far too early to be calling any game a 'must-win', but this was marked as being one of the 'easier' games when Newcastle found out who their Champions League opponents would be, and therefore, it feels like this would be our best chance to get three points on the board in the competition.

Each side is coming into the game in different circumstances; however, Newcastle is struggling to get their season going, while USG have been unstoppable.

Eddie Howe didn't seem too sure what his starting lineup would be this afternoon, so if he doesn't know, what chance do we have? We'll take a punt anyway.

Goalkeeper

Nick Pope - Hopefully, Pope will remember his fantastic 90-odd minutes on Sunday and not the mad minute that lost us the game.

Defenders

Kieran Trippier - Change number one is a forced one for Eddie Howe after Tino Livramento picked up that nasty-looking knee injury on Sunday.

Malick Thiaw - Fabian Schar is fit to play again, but we have seen no reason why Thiaw shouldn't continue in the team ahead of him.

Sven Botman - With great Thiaw comes great Botman. The two need to stick together to grow their connection.

Dan Burn - It would have been easy to put Lewis Hall in here after being rested on Sunday, but Burn, again, has done nothing to deserve being dropped.

Midfielders

Bruno Guimaraes (c) - Captain Bruno will lead the team again. We simply can't afford to play without him.

Sandro Tonali - Sandro has become as indispensable as Bruno.

Joelinton - Went off the boil a bit on Sunday, but you can never rule out the big man,

Forwards

Anthony Elanga - We expect the £55 million summer signing to get the nod over Jacob Murphy in our second change, purely because of his pace.

Nick Woltemade - We have a sickening feeling Eddie Howe might be tempted to play Anthony Gordon as a number 9, but we will not sanction such buffoonery. Nick must start.

Anthony Gordon - Anthony Gordon belongs on the left flank, and that's where we have him starting.

There's every chance that Eddie Howe may look to rest more players after that intense battle at St James' Park on Sunday, but we feel this starting XI gives us the best chance of winning tomorrow.