Newcastle United recorded a much needed victory against an in-form Wolves side at St James’ Park yesterday as they looked closer to being back to their best.
Eddie Howe decided to start Sven Botman once again after he was left out of the squad for their FA Cup tie against Blackburn during the week with Howe claiming he was just in need of a rest.
After the game against Wolves, Howe told BBC Radio Newcastle that he thought Botman had a great game and that his match sharpness was improving after returning from a cruciate ligament injury.
Botman closer to his best in win against Wolves
Botman has struggled as of late with many fans claiming he’s not been the same top quality defender he was before he suffered that knee injury that had kept him out for over three months.
The Dutch defender returned earlier in the year and has enjoyed a solid run in the team, but his performance against Arsenal last week left a lot to be desired and gave fans a real reason to be concerned.
However, the £35m signing looked closer to his best against Wolves as he was positionally much better and looked more in control of the game despite Newcastle having less possession of the ball and relying on counter-attacking plays.
Howe was ‘pleased’ to see Botman and Fabian Schar both have good games that will hopefully restore some confidence back into the side who have been conceding goals for fun as of late.
On Botman, Howe said: “The decision to rest him was based on training rather than rest. We felt he needed to work on certain things. HIs knee injury wasn’t an easy one to deal with.
I thought he looked good today. I was really, really pleased with his response. Coinciding with a clean sheet I thought him and Fabian Schar were excellent.”
Newcastle record first clean sheet since December vs Wolves
While still picking up points in this period, that Magpies have been a bit of a shambles defensively as of late having conceded four to Arsenal, four to Luton, two to Nottingham Forest and two to Bournemouth.
They came away with five points from a possible 12 from those games but from Howe’s perspective it was still nowhere near good enough considering how good they had been at keeping clean sheets last season.
Against Wolves, Newcastle finally managed to keep the ball out of the net in the Premier League for the first time since mid December when they beat 10-man Fulham 3-0 which also happened to be their last home win.
The manager will be hoping this is just a sign of things to come with their fixture list looking a bit kinder now, and a big win against Chelsea on Monday night would really prove that they can go on a solid run in search of Europe.
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