Sven Botman has opted to remain in Newcastle during the international break. The Athletic is reporting Botman has told Netherlands Under-21 coach Erwin van de Looi that he prefers to train with his club rather than play in their two friendlies against Belgium and Romania.
This is an interesting decision from the 22-year-old with the World Cup just months away. Botman has yet to get his first cap with The Netherlands and it’s unclear if this will impact his international future.
Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe recently stated that Dan Burn was ahead of Botman in the pecking order citing the Geordie’s experience. Though he was full of praise for the Dutchman saying:
“We managed their load in the week where we had three games, so (yesterday) was bringing Dan back. I just feel his leadership skills and his experience, we need that in our team at the moment.
“Sven is going to be an outstanding player and will play many, many games for this club. We love him to bits, but Dan just gets the nod at the moment.”
Botman arrived on Tyneside in late June from Lille for €37m plus add-ons. He has gotten off to a promising start already making 6 appearances. The ball-playing defender looks primed to become one of the league’s best in the future.

77 comments so far
Davas
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:24 AM
Comment #1I thought the salary cap was a uefa adjustment to ffp or whatever it’s called now.
Nijmegen-toon
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:27 AM
Comment #2Davas,
It is so grossly unfair that surely it can be challenged in court.
martoon
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:35 AM
Comment #3Valle – just reading your ticket problems – what you need to do is get your son a membership (I think the junior ones are cheaper) then you can link the two membership accounts together. Then you still need to go on as soon as you can after the tickets become available to members but then you can buy two tickets and allocate one to you and one to your son (a junior ticket which will be cheaper).
Davas
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:38 AM
Comment #4Nijmegen-toon
I wouldn’t know legally but maybe if it has gone through the normal decision processes it may be difficult to fight and probably/possibly take years.
At the other end of the scale it might help stop rubbish owners running clubs into the ground.
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:41 AM
Comment #5Sven, that is total pro behaviour, if true!
Why are these games breaking play up, again?
We all know southgate/fa have effectively chosen their squad, years ago!
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:42 AM
Comment #6…follow the money!
😉
dazzler
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:51 AM
Comment #7FTC on previous,
I do think that the errors/decisions in VAR have affected the big 6 as much as anyone else, which is why I don’t believe there is a real argument for playing favourites.
Liverpool scored for Isak’s goal, but were previously stung by Rashford’s.
City had two decisions go against them vs us.
As I say, the problem (IMO) is down to poor reffing. If the referees on the pitch were better there’d be less need for VAR to get involved. Where VAR is pulled into play then the refs behind the screen need to be better. It all boils down to really poor officiating, which is criminal at the top level of the sport.
dazzler
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:56 AM
Comment #8Nijmegen,
If the rule is based on % of income then surely it boils down to teams having a capacity to seriously increase their commercial revenue? So it’s not necessarily unfair, as most clubs have the ability to bring in bigger/better sponsors.
I can’t see this truly affecting us, as we were so grossly mismanaged for years on that front that we have a massive scope to increase our sponsorships throughout the club, and using the clubs in the league as a measuring stick we can practically charge what we want for things like stadium sponsorship / shirt sponsorship etc.
It’s going to be hard for the FA to argue against it if we charge £50m a season to a PIF related organisation when they let Man City charge Etihad £67.5m for theirs as an example.
Tyran21
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:57 AM
Comment #9Newcastle’s sleeve sponsor is worth almost as much as Fun88 sponsor. Can’t imagine what the owners lined up for the new shirt sponsor.
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:57 AM
Comment #10Which ever way we slice it…’lesser’ teams, somehow, constantly lose out!
How does that happen?
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:58 AM
Comment #11*consistently
dazzler
Sep 20, 2022 at 11:58 AM
Comment #12Clint,
At the risk of sounding like a spoiled fan, I don’t care as we aren’t one of the lesser teams anymore 😀
valle
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:01 PM
Comment #13Martoon/Nijmegen
Thank you both of you! 🙂
I tried to buy him a membership back in july but it seemed like they were sold out. I will try again.
Tyran21
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:01 PM
Comment #14CLINT FLICK
That’s how the world works sadly.
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:03 PM
Comment #15Dazzler
That’s cool, nate… i get ya.
But, that’s what they rely on, init?
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:06 PM
Comment #16Tyran
Very true mate.
Doesn’t stop us jumping up and reminding them, everytime…if nothing else, embarrassing them with difficult questions is the least we can do.
😉
Tyran21
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:07 PM
Comment #17Seems like tons of club chasing Mykhaylo Mudryk.
Toonarmy of Frogs
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:08 PM
Comment #18Valle,
Yes your son needs a membership. Set him up an account. Only members can buy junior memberships (as you take them to the game).
You then link the accounts (as in friends and family).
You can now select multiple tickets and assign them to the correct membership (one per member). Then complete a sale for adjacent seats.
Took a while to set up / get my head around it as their is no guidance on how to do this. It’s a very confusing process.
TBF the whole website needs updating.
dazzler
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:15 PM
Comment #19Clint,
I think no matter what rules are or aren’t adopted it will always seem to be at the detriment of smaller clubs.
The problem when they imposed FFP is that the bigger teams had already sectioned off the market, so they were largely unaffected as they had massive income streams, the best players and youth academies etc. It was always going to be near enough impossible for smaller teams to catch up without the threat of sanctions etc.
All the rules do is highlight the clear gap between the top 1% and the rest.
The only way to close the gap is to develop the youth academies and hope you get the next lot of Grealish type players you can flog for £100m a pop whilst maximising sponsorship.
The problem with that is the big clubs will start to whinge that they aren’t getting their fair share and start crying on about a super league again, so the FA will bottle it and impose new rules on sponsorship to hinder others (as they’ve already tried to do).
Ultimately, if the rules are applied fairly then it would be great for the national side, as you’ll have every club in the land striving to have a best in class youth academy so we’ll start developing real stars of tomorrow. Also, it would be great for the league to have 20 teams in it that have the potential to challenge.
valle
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:23 PM
Comment #20TOF
Yes you right, its a tad confusing I must admit. The problem now is that I dont think that there are more memberships left to buy him.
Nijmegen-toon
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:25 PM
Comment #21valle,
They capped adult membership but you can still buy kids ones, it’s worth it as the difference between kids price and say, someone buying him an adult ticket for you, pays for the membership.
Tyran21
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:32 PM
Comment #22CLINT FLICK
It’s also hard for smaller teams to hold on to their stars and managers to even start building the foundation. This is their bigger problem than the FFP rules.
Nijmegen-toon
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:34 PM
Comment #23Good news for us on Botman, not sure it’s the right thing to do for his international career. Maybe he’s hoping if he focuses on us he gets to start and gets to Qatar on that route, rather than relying on playing well for the U21’s. Hope he’s met with approval from his international bosses.
valle
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:34 PM
Comment #24Nijmegen
He is 16, so I think he is to old for those memberships that is left, but I will check it out.
Nijmegen-toon
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:44 PM
Comment #25valle,
Ah, I didn’t realise that, could he not pass as 13?
ToonDarnSarf
Sep 20, 2022 at 12:57 PM
Comment #26Tyran – been busy so maybe someone has already replied.
According to https://www.statista.com/statistics/1231497/revenue-of-football-clubs-in-2021/ Chelsea’s revenue in 2022 was $586m while Arsenal’s and Spurs’ was $435m and $483m.
We are not even in the top 20, Leeds is 20th with $229m. I suspect we are not too far behind that but those other figures show you how unrealistic it would be to match those 3 clubs next year (or even for a few years after that). Even an additional £50m per annum in sponsorship deals will leave us well short. It’s going to take a long time to build up the commercial side of the club.
ToonDarnSarf
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:01 PM
Comment #27I find most of the VAR arguments totally biased to be honest. VAR overruled TWO on-field decisions in our favour against Man City and simply upheld an on-field decision against Liverpool. I really think that the colours of the lines for the offside decision against Isak has caused some confusion – the fact that they used a red (attacker) line for Isak has led some people to post that the Liverpool line is clearly ahead of the Isak line, presumably because Liverpool play in red…
For the Isak goal to be given, VAR would have to prove categorically that he was 100% onside. It’s really simple.
Nijmegen-toon
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:02 PM
Comment #28Well that’s where Darren Eales comes in nicely, they’re offering £35K pa and free City centre parking to be his assistant.
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:02 PM
Comment #29Dazzler
Sad, but true mate.
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:04 PM
Comment #30…which is why the other 14 have to stop being railroaded or conned into voting for stuff that gives advantage to already advantaged teams.
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:06 PM
Comment #31Tyran
True dat!
dazzler
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:07 PM
Comment #32TDS,
The problem with the Isak goal was that they only reviewed one angle (or so it appeared while watching the game), so if there are other views they should be reviewing everything which I truly don’t believe they do every time. Not saying the goal would have stood either way in that case, but they should be looking at everything to arrive at the correct decision.
Look at the goal v Palace. The ref was only shown the one angle that made it look like less of a foul on Willock. They should have shown the ref all views to allow him to make a fair and balanced assessment. If they have the footage they should use it all when making these game changing decisions otherwise what is the point?
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:07 PM
Comment #33Nothing ever changed by doing nowt, and just accepting ‘the way things are’, hey?
CLINT FLICK
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:09 PM
Comment #34Fact is… the ref made the correct call v palace…& they made him question, based on said incomplete/bad info.
ToonDarnSarf
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:10 PM
Comment #35Dazzler – the positive from FFP is it’s made it less likely for clubs to risk everything and then plummet down the league. The negative is that without taking big risks, it’s incredibly hard to challenge the big 6.
So yes, I fully support a change to FFP but I’m not quite sure how you minimise risk while at the same time not significantly reducing the potential rewards. Not without penalising the richest clubs in some way (i.e. a salary cap).
ToonDarnSarf
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:11 PM
Comment #36Clint – correct. That was 100% a total balls up against Palace. Nobody with a brain is questioning that. They have already announced a review to try and ensure that doesn’t happen again. Especially as it happened twice that weekend.
Nijmegen-toon
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:13 PM
Comment #37I still don’t understand why the ref has to review the incident himself. 99% of the time he agrees with what they’ve told him to do anyway. He refs the game as normal, if he gets a wrong call then they look at it from every angle and give him the correct decision asap. The time wasted by him trotting over to the monitor is ridiculous.
ToonDarnSarf
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:13 PM
Comment #38Dazzler – If even 1 angle showed Isak a offside then that’s enough to end the VAR review and stick with the on-field decision in my opinion. Because the evidence then cannot be overwhelming. Imagine if we’d had a goal allowed against us but there was a photo showing the goalscorer as offside!
Palace decision was a debacle.
Tyran21
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:19 PM
Comment #39ToonDarnSarf
Guess have to wait till what the owner bring in as new sponsors and what position Newcastle finish this season to have a clearer picture. You are right, it is not easy to be level with the CL clubs if Newcastle are not even in Europa. I feel will not be far behind though when you see the likes of poorly managed Everton at 259mil.
Nijmegen-toon
Sep 20, 2022 at 1:21 PM
Comment #40Because of their huge fan base and commercial revenue Man U can afford to really screw up in the transfer window time and time again and still buy players. Everton messed up and they have to sell their best player to stay within FFP. That is not a level playing. The crooks at UEFA and FIFA don’t give a jot about clubs like Brighton and Leicester getting in to financial difficulties, to suggest FFP is to benefit smaller clubs is a farce.