Nick Woltemade took a step back for Newcastle United during their defeat to Manchester United on Boxing Day.
While Woltemade wasn’t alone, the Newcastle United star struggled to make any kind of meaningful impact at Old Trafford.
Indeed, the German was ineffective during Newcastle United’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester United, a disappointing game sealed by Patrick Dorgu’s first half volley.
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The most frustrating part of it was the fact that Woltemade was coming off his best game for Newcastle, after he had scored a brace against Chelsea before Christmas.
He was unable to build on that and struggled as Newcastle’s attackers failed to convince against Man United.
Watching on, a German football expert had a theory about why.
Newcastle United told formation change might help Nick Woltemade
The Athletic’s German football writer Seb Stafford-Bloor was watching the striker struggle for service at the Theatre of Dreams.
Stafford-Bloor would have seen an awful lot of the German international during his time at Stuttgart, so seems well-placed to comment.
After seeing Woltemade in action in Manchester, Stafford-Bloor raised the theory that perhaps the striker could do with a change of system.
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Eddie Howe usually deploys only one striker in a 4-3-3 system, but does have the option to switch things up now that Yoane Wissa has returned to fitness.
On social media platform X, Stafford-Bloor wrote: “Based on what I saw for Stuttgart, Nick Woltemade tends to do a lot more when there are other attacking players around him. I don’t know whether Newcastle would sacrifice a player from midfield to provide that support, but it’s an idea.”
Nick Woltemade did not win a single ground duel against Manchester United
Woltemade did not get much attacking support for Newcastle against Man United but, in all honesty, he does need to be doing more.
Clearly, the fact that this is his first season in English football must always be taken into account.
He has broadly done an excellent job in an attacking unit that just hasn’t functioned consistently this season, scoring nine goals in 24 games.
However, he has simply got to get stronger when holding the ball up. Woltemade didn’t win a single ground duel against the Red Devils.
He did win two of his three aerial duels but a player of his size shouldn’t be bullied off the ball that easily.
While it is true that having another player closer to him might help, Newcastle need more from their club record signing.
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