There were countless attacking targets that were pursued By Newcastle United before Nick Woltemade.
The likes of Hugo Ekitike, Benjamin Sesko, Joao Pedro and Jorgen Strand Larsen are all forwards we are known to have made public bids for prior to making any attempt to sign Big Nick.
Let’s be completely honest, Newcastle United did not want to sign Nick Woltemade.
Even when bidding for these alternative forwards, the club was still clinging to the hope that Alexander Isak would end his rebellion and remain at Newcastle United.
Which displays further how little intent the club had of signing Nick Woltemade prior to the 2025/26 season.
The massive fees paid by Newcastle United for both Woltemade and Wissa, the latter arguably being one of the most overly inflated fees in football transfer history, serves as another clear indicator as to how our moves last summer weren’t exactly well coordinated or planned – they were entirely out of panic and desperation.
I bring this up to emphasise why Nick Woltemade is being so painfully misused at Newcastle United – because we never wanted to sign him in the first place.
Woltemade represents the opposite of Eddie Howe’s footballing philosophy – he is technical, slow, and reliant on creative build up play and a range of attacking options in and around him. Given Howe’s insistence on playing fast paced and intense football, no matter how detrimental that may be to our already thin squad that has been competing across four competitions, it’s no wonder we have struggled to get the best out of Germany’s current starting striker.
That’s right, Germany’s starting striker, who we currently insist on playing in central midfield in what appears an attempt to shoehorn him into the line up without having to adjust our tactical approach in any way whatsoever.
This is the same forward who commanded a club record £65m transfer fee (plus potentially another £4.5m in future add-ons) after helping Stuttgart to win their first trophy in 18 years, with five goals in five DFB Pokal appearances, including a goal in the final. He was also one of the players of the tournament at the U21 European Championships, winning the golden boot with six goals in five games. He had Bayern Munich desperately vying for his signature and allegedly already has Chelsea chasing his signature this summer.
Let’s not forget that, when played in his natural striking position, Nick Woltemade scored nine goals in all competitions for Newcastle United before the turn of the year despite playing in a completely new system that did not cater to his strengths in any way.
I also can’t be the only one that’s noticed how frequently we sub on Jacob Murphy, whose most noteworthy talent by a mile is his crossing ability, at the exact same time that we sub the 6ft 6 Nick Woltemade off. We then often go on to repeatedly pump crosses into the box for the rest of the game, often to an entirely isolated Anthony Gordon who has never scored a headed goal in Premier League History.
To summarise my point, Nick Woltemade is not the useless, clunky, unusable fraud of a striker that Eddie Howe, the local media and certain sub sections of the fanbase seem to believe he is. He is the future of Germany’s national team and he is an amazing, technically gifted forward who has been wrongfully scapegoated by the club who should have done far more research and pre-planning before they signed him in the first place.
I have absolutely no doubt that Nick Woltemade will go on to have an amazing footballing career, likely leading the line for one of the biggest clubs in Europe within the next couple of years.
Given that Eddie Howe looks nailed on to stay beyond the summer, regardless of how the rest of the season pans out, it’s incredibly unlikely we will see the true extent of Woltemade’s talents in his likely brief time at St James’ Park. I have little doubt that one day we will all look back and wonder how and why we didn’t make the most of it while we had him at Newcastle United.