Sven Botman continues to stand firm forcing Newcastle United to look into potential alternative targets for the centre-back role, a report claims.
According to what journalist Claudio Raimondi has reported on SportMediaset (via MilanNews), the next few days will be decisive in the future of Botman, who continues to push for a move to Milan so much so that he is not considering any other options at present.
Newcastle have offered €38m to Lille for the Dutchman which is more than Milan’s bid of €30m, and they are becoming impatient as they are not managing to convince the player to move to the Premier League.
That is why their management are considering the possibility of changing targets for the defence and a name has already emerged. Merih Demiral could be the man the Magpies go for, as he is set to leave Juventus after returning from his loan at Atalanta.
He isn’t good, slow. He will start with Tomori they said. We win a title with Kalulu, now we say “Hey Pierre **** you, we win a title with you after 11 fk years! But now, we will play Botman bc in our eyes he is good(he isn’t, wasn’t even good enough for Ajax) I don’t get this
we need defenders with different characteristics. our defense with Tomori and Kalulu, as strong as it is, has a weakness and that is aerial balls, a problem someone like Botman can solve, a problem CL teams will take advantage of if we don’t fix
Totally agree, we had trouble with set pieces on aerial duels and man2man marking. Pioli needs better options in defence. Probably is the most realistic target that fulfills owners checklist. My main concern is his pace, hope coach can work on it.
remember, Kalulu can play both RB and LB positions, between Champions league, Coppa Italia and reg season games, I see a rotation/Platooning of the four back liner, and you can swap/exchange any of them and be competitive, Calabria/Tomori/Kalulu/Kjaer/Botman/Hernandez/Florenzi, I see it as brilliant!
Yes, not only aerial balls; but he is a left footed center back which neither Tomori nor Kalulu are. Romagnoli was but he’s gone.
I think Kalulu should go back to right back and Calabria (as much as I love him) shouldn’t be a starter and Tomori can go back to being the right center back where he is more comfortable and Botman (and/or Kjaer) can be left centerback.
Newcastle are still in the driving seat for this deal. Botman might wanna go to Milan, but Milan have to up their offer by around 10M for Lillie to sell to them.
If Botman won’t sign for Newcastle then they cannot buy him. Buying a player without his signature won’t be useful.