Sven Botman Injury: Major blow for Newcastle United as defender ruled out for 6-9 months

After a careful assessment, Newcastle United’s Sven Botman will be sidelined for six to nine months due to an ACL injury, the club has announced. He is now preparing himself for a surgery which is estimated to take place next week. 

The Dutch defender was subbed off at the 83rd minute when The Magpies lost to Manchester City in the FA Cup on Saturday. It is just three months after Botman returned from his knee injury which kept him out of the pitch since September.

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Sven Botman is struggling with his recovery

Botman has been struggling since recovering from his knee injury in last year’s fourth quarter. Newcastle legend Alan Shearer accused him of playing the “worst game in a Newcastle shirt”, citing that he easily lost the ball, which led his team to concede.

The player himself admitted that it was not easy to deal with the post-injury period. In fact the September knee fiasco was not Botman’s first injury since he started playing for Newcastle as he had suffered a blow to the knee injury in August too.

“But when you’re getting back on the pitch after such a long time, after training by yourself, and then getting back to having 20, 30 people around you, it’s so different,” Botman said in February on Newcastle’s official site. “When you’re training alone, you’re constantly focusing on your own injury, your own rehab, and when you have people around you you start to think more about other players and not your injury anymore. It’s all part of your rehab, but you have to take your time.”

Sven Botman is no stranger to injuries

As a footballer, Botman is familiar to injuries. However, he never suffered a setback of the same injury since his senior debut in 2018. When playing for Ajax, he got a kidney problem and had to be sidelined for a month, causing him to miss five games for the club. 

Moving to Lille, his first significant injury was on groin, spending 47 days for treatment from October 13th to November 29th in 2021. Four months later, Botman suffered from a new problem in his hamstring. He missed seven matches in 37 days for Lille during that time.

Newcastle will host West Ham this weekend to climb back up to the mid-table after losing to Chelsea in the previous game. Five days later, it is Everton who will come to St. James Park with the mission of maintaining distance from relegation zone.