Aldo Serena backs Nick Woltemade

Former Juventus striker Aldo Serena has backed Nick Woltemade.

The Newcastle United loan striker having been restricted to only 80 minutes off the bench in Serie A matches so far.

Though Nick Woltemade has scored in both of his Europa League starts, including on Thursday against Celta Vigo.

Aldo Serena now stating: “Has Woltemade convinced me? Halfway, let me explain. He’s not very quick, but he’s a striker who links play well and fits Spalletti’s game.”

Aldo Serena also played for Inter Milan and AC Milan, he goes on to explain about Nick Woltemade: “He has good technique and uses it to combine well with his teammates. But he needs to understand better when to play the ball first time and when to control it and wait for a midfielder to arrive in support. If you play centre-forward, you have to hold the ball up, protect it and maybe win a few fouls too. I’m still convinced he can play up front.”

Aldo Serena going on to say about Thursday’s match when Nick Woltemade played the full 90+ minutes: “It has to be said that Koopmeiners never made runs to support him, so he didn’t help Woltemade at all.”

Spalletti is now said to be considering starting strikers Woltemade and Kolo Muani together for the first time, Sunday’s game against Lazio in Turin.

It has all been ridiculously over the top the criticism as the Italian media have made the Newcastle United loan player a scapegoat for Juventus’ average start to the season, sixth in the table and only nine goals scored by Juve in six league matches.

This Nick Woltemade criticism (blindly parroted by the UK media) especially ludicrous considering Big Nick hasn’t yet had a chance to start a Serie A match, only 80 minutes in sub appearances.

Now the loan striker has two goals from two starts in the Europa League for Juventus though.

A big issue has been the fact that Juventus boss Luciano Spalletti has so far been unwilling to play strikers Kolo Muani and Nick Woltemade together. Although before kick-off in midweek, Spalletti insisted that he would/could be prepared to do so, even possibly from the start against Celta Vigo.

That didn’t happen but Kolo Muani did come off the bench six minutes after Woltemade’s equaliser and the pair played together until the final whistle. They combined well in that time with Nick Woltemade unselfishly linking play up and the perfect ending when Kolo Muani completed the fightback with the winning goal in added time.

Nick Woltemade was a happy man after the final whistle and told Italian media: “I think that this was my best game for Juve. Obviously I can do better but I am happy with the goal, a goal always helps confidence. Important for a striker and I want to keep getting stronger. Of course I like playing with Kolo. When there is just one centre-forward, the defenders can focus on just marking one, it is easier for them, whereas with two of us we can divide up the space more. I am not the coach though and I trust my coach, I think any choice he makes will be the right one. I am a good player, Kolo is a good player, so the decision is up to the coach, but as long as we keep scoring goals everyone will be happy.”

Nick Woltemade pounces on Marcos Alonso’s mistake at the back and equalises for Juventus 💥

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Best of luck to Nick Woltemade and interesting to see what the Juventus boss does on Sunday with his two strikers, Juve are home to Lazio in Serie A.

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