‘Simply unimaginable’ – Luke Edwards thrilled by what Newcastle have done for Botman

Luke Edwards has now shared his views on the arrival of Sven Botman at Newcastle United, thrilled by the show of ambition from the Magpies in beating seven-time European champions AC Milan.

After a long round of negotiations, the Magpies have now secured the signing of Lille centre-back Botman, who joins Eddie Howe’s side on a five year contract.

Newcastle eventually came to an agreement with the French side after months of talks dating back to January, with a £32m fee deemed acceptable for the promising youngster.

The Toon were locked in a battle with Serie A giants AC Milan to land the 22-year-old defender, with the Italian outfit unwilling to match Lille’s valuation of the player.

Edwards has now shared his views on Newcastle’s latest signing, proclaiming that this is a sign of things to come for the North East club.

Taking to Twitter, the journalist exclaimed:

“Botman was on #nufc scouting list this time last year but there was no chance they could have signed him then and beating AC Milan to do so was simply unimaginable. The times are a changing.”

According to SofaScore match ratings, Botman was Lille’s most valuable player for the 2021/22 Ligue 1 season, having averaged an impressive 7.10 score across 25 appearances.

This praise has been supported by teammate Jose Fonte, an experienced Premier League defender, who claimed: “He’s tall, he’s considerably fast, he has a great left foot, he gives great balls between the lines and he reads the game very well. Listen, I loved every time, every game that we played together.

“He’s good now offensively too, he has improved. He scores goals. I think he can deal with the Premier League. For sure it’s going to be a great test for him, but I think he can deal with it, 100%.”

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