Nick Woltemade is not making missteps at Newcastle United, either on or off the pitch.
Woltemade’s start to life at Newcastle United has been little short of stunning, even if the team around him are yet to fully convince.
The German international has already scored seven goals this season and looks capable of being the club’s next iconic striker.
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Clearly, there’s a long way to go on that front but the 23-year-old has surely made greater strides than almost anyone would have expected.
Though he’s not yet in their company, Newcastle are a club famous for having excellent strikers.
Alan Shearer is no doubt the standout even among that pantheon of greats and Woltemade appears to agree.
Nick Woltemade says Alan Shearer was better than Wayne Rooney
Shearer, of course, is the Premier League’s record goalscorer.
However, as time goes on, players of Woltemade’s generation and below may simply not have watched him at his brilliant best.
Shearer retired almost two decades ago now. Woltemade would have been a toddler at the time.
Wayne Rooney was perhaps the Premier League’s standout forward during the late 2000s and early 2010s and may have been more visible to players of a younger vintage.
Still, when asked who was the better player by Stern’s Tik Tok channel, Woltemade went for Shearer, which will surely delight a fanbase who already love him.
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I’d be telling him to get Anthony Gordon in the XI after his cameo against Spurs!
The stats that prove Alan Shearer was a better striker than Wayne Rooney
Rooney was an absolutely brilliant player, so it’s certainly not a slight on him. A forward who scored 208 Premier League goals in 491 games deserves a huge amount of respect.
However, the statistics even away from the goals paint Shearer in a much better light.
| Premier League statistics | Alan Shearer | Wayne Rooney |
| Games | 441 | 491 |
| Goals | 260 | 208 |
| Assists | 64 | 103 |
| Minutes per goal | 146.9 | 182.8 |
| Hat-tricks | 11 | 7 |
| Game-winning goals | 68 | 66 |
Shearer boasted a better minutes per goal ratio, scored more hat-tricks and more game-winning goals.
Amazingly, Rooney almost joined Newcastle to play alongside Shearer in 2004.
There’s certainly an argument to suggest Rooney had more to his game than purely goals, although that was also true of Shearer before a series of knee injuries.
Woltemade isn’t just toeing the party line here…