Malick Thiaw - What AC Milan's German giant would bring to Newcastle United

It's become increasingly clear that Newcastle United are big admirers of Malick Thiaw. After the blog first revealed our interest in the AC Milan talent 13 months ago, there's been a number of reports over the past month covering our pursuit of the 22-year-old talent.

After watching Thiaw on several occasions in Serie A or the UEFA Champions League, I have put together some thoughts on the key attributes he could bring to Eddie Howe's back line, also covering a couple of his current weaknesses.

Athleticism and ball winning

Standing at just shy of 6ft 4', Thiaw is a real presence and man mountain. That is great, but combine this with his long legs and powerful upper body makes him such an aggressive and effective front-footed defender. He stays so tight to his marker and hardly gives them a second to breathe, with this highlighted when he bullied Harry Kane out of the game when Milan met Spurs in the UEFA Champions League last year.

Thiaw likes to go to ground and often uses his long legs and huge stride to give him the upper hand. The German likes to wrap his leg round and poke the ball away from the attacker. He can tower over his opposition and also has acceleration to defend the channels. This makes him very difficult to beat in one vs one situations, meaning he could add some much-needed pace and athleticism to our pool of centre-backs.

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Technical quality

Thiaw is good technically. Growing up playing as a midfielder has allowed him to be very comfortable on the ball, however, I have noticed he much prefers to progress the ball laterally. He doesn’t seem to trust his ability as much when playing line breaking passes, but I have seen on occasions he’s more than capable of doing so. He would need to improve this part of his game if he was to replicate the midfield-breaking balls we often see from Fabian Schar.

He’s quite a calm presence on the ball, but doesn’t do anything to flashy. Thiaw is more conservative than Schar and can sometimes go unnoticed in games, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You don't tend to see him take many risks on the ball. He is someone who can escape pressure and move the ball consistently through the thirds. He’s comfortable carrying the ball and has a good sense of ball control for a player of his size.

A good fit for Newcastle?

I believe Thiaw has all the components for what we need at right centre back. He is aerially impressive, front footed, aggressive, offers decent recovery pace and defends wide channels effectively. His mature ball playing ability will help contribute to our build up and he's more than suited for high line defending as he senses danger quickly and has the athleticism to recover when needed.

The fact he also knows Sandro Tonali from their time together at AC Milan would also do no harm and may help him settle in the North East, should we agree a deal.

Weaknesses

I don’t actually think Thiaw has many outstanding weaknesses. One is his slight passiveness on the ball, as I feel he could break lines more often. Another one is that he can sometimes be slightly too aggressive in his duels, leading to cheap fouls being given away. I do think he’ll improve on that with experience, however.

He's dropped a few clangers, so he could be susceptible to criticism from opposition fans finding old footage of errors, but these moments don’t define a player. It’s very easy to clip moments of defenders to make them look bad and it's worth noting that he's still very young.

So, after seeing the rumours intensify and watching a couple of full-match replays of Thiaw in action to take a more detailed look, these are my notes.

I am hoping we can get this signing done, as Thiaw has everything we need from a right-sided centre-back. He's a good age and represents a very attractive deal for Newcastle if we can come to an agreement with AC Milan at the right price.