Nick Woltemade – Is There Still a Way Back at Newcastle?
Nick Woltemade started off at Newcastle after his £69M move in a rich goal scoring vein but even during that run it was becoming increasingly clear that he lacked pace, aggression and had a habit of dropping too deep to be in the right place for balls into the box.
Once his goals dried up his weaknesses as a ST in the highly physical, fast paced, PL forced Eddie Howe to try him in midfield, but that was an experiment that failed.
It didn't get any better when fellow German Matthias Jaissle arrived at SJP and our new manager was clearly unimpressed and allowed him to be sent on loan to Juventus.
How Has Woltemade Performed At Juventus?
Like me, many fans will have almost discounted Woltemade from their minds in terms of playing again for Newcastle.
Unless a miracle occurs in his style of play he just isn't cut out for a ST role in the world's hardest league, and most fans hope that he impresses enough at Juventus for Newcastle to recoup a decent part of the fee we paid.
In goalscoring terms his start doesn't look to bad, three goals including one assist.
But, two of those goals were penalties and he was no doubt given the taker's job to help him get on the score sheet, boost his confidence and get on the right side of Juve's fans.
However, the fact that Woltemade has only made three starts in eight games played since his arrival tells the real story. He isn't impressing enough to be a regular starter.
Unless he plays his way into the starting line up and turns in regular good, and goalscoring, performances he will almost certainly be heading back to Newcastle at the end of his loan - there is no agreement to buy with Juventus.
Jaissle Says He Still Rates Woltemade Highly
Well, he would say that wouldn't he.
Older, much older, blog readers will remember that saying was made famous by Mandy Rice Davies when John Profumo, the then Defence Minister and many years her senior, denied engaging in hanky panky with the young lady who was also gallivanting with a senior Russian spy chief.
It was, of course true. Profumo had lied to Parliament and resigned in humiliation.
So... is Jaissle telling the truth?
One thing we do know is true is that he didn't rate Woltemade highly enough to challenge Osula and Wissa for the main ST role - and that was before we signed Pardo.
MJ is hardly going to come out with the "he is no longer part of my plans' craic when the club have invested £69M on a player they hope to recoup a decent fee for.
So where does that leave the club and Big Nick?
One, hoping he becomes a sensation at Juventus, two, that they want to sign him, three, that neither happens, and four that he returns to Newcastle with his reputation and value having declined even further.
What then?
The club are faced with either massively cutting their losses and getting big wages off the books, or hoping that Jaissle can turn lead into gold and make a player out of him.
That of course is... if Jaissle is still here by then.
Hopefully he still will be...
And a win at Crystal Palace will definitely help.
That discussion is for the match preview tomorrow.
Today's question is... what do you think will happen with Woltemade?
And the next question is... when are you going to strut your stuff in a Toon Stuff shirt :)
Not only has he only had 3 starts none of them are in serie A. His only starts are in the conference/ Europa league where in general Juventus rest players and keep them for Seria A and 2 out of 3 goals from pens boosting his stats.
We will just have to face it I’m afraid we paid miles over the top for him, Not his fault it’s ours and we will pay for that over the length of his contract if his performance levels as is likely continues at current levels. I’m afraid it’s not just the EPL he is not suited to
350 Million from player sales since the summer of 2025.
What have we bought with it and what do we have to show for it.
I'll say it again.
Terrible recruitment.
The club is run by folks simply not good enough.
AI Post Images
There have been some comments about the images not looking like the players - the reason being I have to be really careful that I do not fall foul of copyright laws for which fines can be really high.
The alternative is to purchase copyright licences but in all that would amount to several hundreds of pounds - many blog sites etc., publish copyright images without a licence and are taking a big risk as fines apply to every image published.
To get around this and make images more 'lifelike' I have uploaded player and MJ images into AI with the instruction to change the pose, face direction etc., etc., to avoid copyright - the first example…
I’d like to say there’s a way back, but the reality is probably that there isn’t. He simply doesn’t seem suited to us—or, more likely, to the Premier League in general.