It feels like Eddie Howe and the Newcastle United recruitment team have found their long-term successors for Dan Burn and Fabian Schar.
At a time where the likes of Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United face an uncertain future in terms of their defensive options, moves for Sven Botman in 2022 and Malick Thiaw in 2025 may go down as some of the best bits of transfer business conducted by the club post-takeover.
We’ve known for years just how imperious a fit and healthy Botman is, but no one could have quite predicted just how well Thiaw would settle into life in the Premier League so soon after signing from AC Milan.
His performances have earned him rave reviews from fans, pundits and neutrals alike. And Howe has now been discussing his arrival and £34m move.
Much like top stars like Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali, we somehow faced little to no competition from other clubs to step in and sign Malick Thiaw.
In fact, there were portions of the AC Milan fanbase who seemed amazed that the club was able to sell Thiaw for £34m, wanting the Rossoneri to snap our hand off and sell the 24-year-old.
But AC Milan’s loss is our gain, and the signing of Thiaw could not have come at a better time for Howe, who was asked if he was surprised to have a clear run at the former Schalke talent after his switch to Como broke down.
“Yeah to a degree. He was playing at a top club as well. Whether he was ever going to be available was unclear. And then if he was available, was there going to be someone else that would be able to get him ahead of us.”
“Thankfully that wasn’t the case and we were able to secure his signature. I think he was an important signing for us.”
Howe has also revealed that he was initially ‘fearful’ about our efforts to sign another centre-back, admitting there wasn’t a big list of options he deemed good enough:
I was fearful during the summer because there wasn’t a long list of players who we felt were good enough to come in and have the impact Malick has had.”
Thiaw and new centre-back partner Botman, a pairing that Paolo Maldini came close to bringing together at the San Siro, have been one of the most formidable duos in both the Premier League and Champions League this season.
Thiaw has recorded four clean sheets in six starts across all competitions, and has managed to keep Schar out of the starting XI even after the Swiss star recovered from his concussion.
The two Europeans cost just under £70m combined, which when you consider the current defensive market and how inflated it is price-wise, that’s absurdly good value for two players who really should be on the plane to the World Cup next summer.
Let’s hope that Thiaw will serve as a present reminder to Howe and the recruitment team moving forward that buying players from the continent will almost always be the better option than paying inflated prices for Premier League talent.
