£30m star Has finally get a chance to prove himself

The long-term injury to Sven Botman is a savage blow to both the player and the club. To be out for up to nine months after having surgery knocks a huge hole in everyone’s plans. However when it comes on top of months trying to battle on despite a knee injury it is twice as bad.

With hindsight all that time has been wasted. Sven may as well have gone under the knife way back because, frankly, he has looked a shell of the player he was since his ill-fated comeback. Botman was top quality when he first arrived but he has been nothing like it of late.

This is yet another long term blow to Newcastle. It really is getting ridiculous. We are never seeing players for a wide variety of reasons. Botman is now out for up to nine months. Sandro Tonali is currently missing for a similar period due to betting irregularities, we’ve hardly clapped eyes of Harvey Barnes since he arrived due to a variety of freakish injuries, and then there is the puzzling case of Lewis Hall.

The kid came amid much blowing of trumpets as a great star of the future but, despite being fit throughout while United have suffered a terrible injury crisis, he has started only four matches – and in two of them he was substituted uninjured at half-time. Yet United are supposedly committed to shelling out up to £30m for him in the summer. I mean, what on earth is going on? On the surface it looks an awful waste of money.

I feel sorry for the lad as well because publicly it looks like the manager doesn’t rate him. His ideal move to the club he has supported since a boy through his dad has turned sour. Maybe he knows something privately that reassures him but regardless with all the silence surrounding him his professional reputation has taken a battering.

Will Botman’s injury throw him a lifeline? Well Eddie Howe has to rejig his back four on the resumption of hostilities against West Ham and for the rest of the season.

What can he do? The choice at the centre of the defence appears to be two fold – either bring in Jamaal Lascelles and switch Fabian Schar over to the left or put Dan Burn straight in for Botman. I would do the latter. Burn signed as a left-sided central defender and that is where he looks most comfortable, not at left-back. It would take a huge weight off his shoulders and he deserves that.

United have plenty of choice at No 3 with the likes of Matt Targett, Hall and Paul Dummett but I would promote none of the three. I would plump for a back line of Kieran Trippier, Schar, Burn, and Tino Livramento providing all are fit of course.

We are reaching the final lap of the season but United have to keep going and make the best fist they can out of it. What Howe does in Botman’s absence will play a very big part.