In the Nick of time! | OneFootball

What a time it has been for Nick Woltemade between the September and October international breaks.

With goals in four of his five starts and he was denied a stonewall penalty in the fifth of those starts vs Bournemouth.

So much for overpaying for the lad!

The way Nick took the penalty on Sunday against Forest, when I saw his faltering run up followed by him cutting his foot across the ball, I immediately put both hands on my head thinking he was going to shank it into the Gallowgate.

Thankfully, I didn’t shut my eyes, because it ended up the most perfect penalty possible – into the roof of the net halfway into the goal towards one corner of it. I hope though that he doesn’t try this type of shot every single time, else I’m going to need medication soon (and he will miss at some point because no one gets this type of risky penalty shot right 100% of the time – check Salah’s missed pens vs Bournemouth/Leicester in the past for reference)!

Also, Nick Woltemade was clearly unable to even walk towards the ball in the 87th min (one late sprint notwithstanding), that’s when Eddie should have replaced him with Osula without wasting 10 seconds! He has to play 60+ minutes, five games (and score a few in ’em) in a fortnight after the international break, till Wissa’s good enough to start. Need to wrap him in cotton wool and take no chances.

Being someone who wrote about why Newcastle United should go for Nick on Aug 19th, 13 days before the transfer window closed (sadly not on The Mag but detailed below) 10 days before it got done, I am overjoyed that he’s taken to St James’ Park like the proverbial duck to the river Tyne (or perhaps to the lake in Leazes Park, which may literally become his future hunting ground if the new 80k capacity stadium comes to fruition).

Since people have already written about how Nick Woltemade likes to drop deep and link play etc, let me first throw a dampener on it all.

One of the issues with him dropping into the mid third of the pitch in possession, is that once he’s retained the ball despite pressure from CBs/CDMs (which he has an extraordinary success rate at ~90%+) and laid it off, usually to our wingers or to Bruno/Tonali to play it ahead of the wingers to run onto, he needs to turn and then sprint into the box, arriving in time to receive a cross from the wingers. Now Gordon and Elanga are both amongst the top 10 most rapid players in the Premier League. Its ideal for reaching the ball ahead of the full back AND to deliver the cross ahead of a block by the arriving covering defender. But Woltemade is not blessed with great pace, in fact, currently he’s slower than Isak, so the wingers either have to hold the ball for longer while he arrives in the box, get covered by a defender ,OR they need someone else arriving into the box ahead of Woltemade.

Looking at our midfield three (who’ve tried to take on the mantle), Joelinton is decently fast but not a good finisher, Bruno doesn’t have pace but can strike it well and Tonali has both pace and striking ability but that ability is better suited to the edge of the 18 yard box than the 6 yard one. Besides, he can’t do it too often as he’s the only one with the pace to thwart a counter attack back in our half (over time perhaps Thiaw may take over some of that load) so needs to hold himself back half the time. This is where perhaps overpaying for a non-starting XI midfielder from Aston Villa could be the final piece of the puzzle.

Jacob Ramsey’s unique role

One of the most outstanding features of Ramsey’s best times in a Villa shirt have been his ability to run at pace, with or without the ball, towards the opposition’s penalty area and take quality shots at their goal. He’s obviously been brought to replace Anderson as backup (initially) to and ultimately to take over from Joelinton on the LHS of the midfield (given their age differential). He’s robust enough to be a Joelinton minus without the ball (hardly anyone’s going to be equal to big Joe at that!) and has greater finesse and pace with it. Howe should be able to improve his decision making near the penalty box. This is where he (along with Wissa) will be the perfect foil for Woltemade’s act of dropping deep & pulling the last line of defence with him. Ramsey can do both – take the ball from Nick and run towards the penalty area with it, or run with pace and arrive in perfect sync with the winger’s ball into the box to shoot at goal.

Joe Willock has similar abilities in terms of taking the ball bigger distances upfield at pace or arriving in the box (think his goal vs Forest in League Cup R2 last August when Isak did the dropping deep to link play/assist role), but his crossing/passing/shooting abilities over the last couple of seasons have not been consistently good, not to mention his regular injuries (he went off injured vs Forest too, 20 min after his goal mentioned above).

We had already bought Ramsey when pursuing Strand Larsen and Wissa as forwards, well before getting Woltemade, but Jacob’s best value is likely to come from being played in the same team as Nick Woltemade. Eddie Howe has played a blinder here, and if he can sort out various combos of how to play (and rotate) Gordon-Elanga, Murphy-Wissa-Ramsey, alongside Woltemade, we could have the makings of an attack that should keep us in the UCL spots every season amd challenge for the title at some point soon (with a couple of additional players) as the flexibility of attacking routes would be difficult for any opponent to stem for 90 min.

Two side notes to end on

Firstly, since the footballing media in the country completely overlooked it, a thought/mention for the passing of Willie McFaul – perhaps the best keeper in NUFC history apart from Shay Given (or maybe even counting him), who played a vital role in our winning the Fairs Cup in 1969 and reaching our 11th FA Cup final (then a record) in the mid-70s.

Second, a story from Newcastle’s history. In the 1530s the crown outlawed the shipment of coal from Newcastle to foreign lands via the Quayside to keep the vital resource for domestic use and put it in the hands of the local ‘Hostmen’ which allowed them to prosper and build further expansion of the city. This was the time the phrase “taking coals to Newcastle was born”, referring a futile act of taking something to a place where that item was already present in abundance. During the 18th century in America there was a rich extravagant playboy Timothy Dexter not so liked by his drinking buddies. Since he was not the most intelligent or worldly wise they put him up to various doomed pursuits to bankrupt him like shipping ‘bed warmers’ to the West Indies (he managed to sell them there as ladles used to convert sugarcane to molasses – which was one of the most vital industries there and made a profit). He was then goaded to ship coal to Newcastle to end his business permanently, which he did (ship coal, not end his business!). However, the shipment took three months to cross the Atlantic and land at the Quayside, two weeks before it landed the coal miners went on strike, reducing the coal supply to a minimum. He sold the coal at a premium in Newcastle and became even richer.

Couple of learnings there.

Firstly, timing can often overcome all sorts of misfortune/bad decisions. Newcastle buying Nick Woltemade with the Isak crisis at its peak – initiated by others plotting Newcastle’s downfall – could well end up an even better decision than bringing Isak to these shores.

Second – as seen in Dexter’s inventiveness in the Windies (he also picked up stray cats in New England for free and sold them there – as a solution to rat infestation of crops – the Caribbeans paid for them – gladly – perhaps I could throw in a reference to Isak here but I won’t ;-), one person’s bane can be another’s boon – if you’re flexible and smart enough. Eddie Howe certainly is both, and given time and a fully fit squad, he’s hopefully turning the transfer window striker crisis into a watershed moment.

Woltemade may not cover all of Isak’s goals himself, but in a striker who drops deep and creates chances and space for everyone else to run into, he should over time improve EVERYONE else’s goal output in the team (well, maybe not Pope!). It will free us from the constant need to put balls between the last defensive line for a goal scoring forward to get 40-50% of the team’s goals and instead give us so many routes to goals that opponents should find it difficult to plan to stop all of them.

The way to be truly free though is to have an option to replace Woltemade in both his roles – a striker with a calm efficient goal scoring touch (Wissa) and a playmaker who can create both with his back/front to goal (hopefully one will arrive sometime in 2026), so an injury to Nick doesn’t mean we must revert to earlier type.

Here’s to a long and fruitful new era at Newcastle created by buying Nick Woltemade.