'He's on track': Eddie Howe gives update on Sven Botman after Dutchman missed training this week

Wednesday saw Newcastle United release their usual training gallery and fans noticed that Sven Botman was absent from all of the images.

Following that, Keith Downie added on his YouTube channel that Botman was indeed missing from training on Wednesday, but didn't rule out that the 25-year-old could return for consideration before Sunday's game against Nottingham Forest.

Botman came off during the Carabao Cup semi-final second-leg match against Arsenal with a knee complaint and hasn't played since then.

Thankfully, it was confirmed that it wasn't an issue with the knee that gave him so much trouble last season, which resulted in ACL surgery.

Sven Botman could miss the next couple of games

When asked about his usual injury update in Friday morning's press conference, Eddie Howe confirmed that Botman was still struggling and is set to miss the Forest game and potentially next week's midweek clash with Liverpool.

"We don't think he'll be fit and available for this weekend. We're gonna have to see how things stand over the weekend for next week.

"He's making good progress, but just not as quickly as we want. So he's on track, there's been no setback or anything, he's very much on track, just not quite right."

We'd rather wait to have Sven Botman back to 100%

Newcastle's defence was all over the place on Saturday so it would have been nice to have Botman back for the next couple of massive Premier League games heading into next weekend's FA Cup clash with Brighton.

That being said, we don't want a repeat of last year when we kept rushing him back before he was ready and making things worse, so we're happy for him to take the time he needs to get back to 100%.

I'm sure the remaining defenders can recover from last week's shambles, especially if Eddie Howe ditches that horrendous 5-3-2 tactic he toyed with last week.