After hunting all summer for their heir to the number nine throne, Newcastle landed on a unique 6ft 6 profile, going by the name of Nick Woltemade.
The Alexander Isak saga was the story of the summer, with the 26-year-old forward finally making his record-breaking move to Liverpool for £125m.
With the story developing throughout the summer, Newcastle were linked with a number of striker replacements, missing out on Liam Delap, Joao Pedro, Hugo Ekitike and Benjamin Sesko.
But did the Magpies fall upwards with their Bundesliga gem, as Woltemade was signed from Stuttgart for a fee of around £69m.
In this article, we’ll cover
Woltemade’s start for The Toon
Since the 23-year-old arrived at the club, he has already made 10 appearances in all competitions, netting five times and totaling 689 minutes played.
Woltemade scored the only goal in his debut for the club, as the 6ft 6 centre-forward towered above the Wolves defence to nod it home, securing all three points for Newcastle in a 1-0 win.
The German has shown he has a knack for arriving in the box, with a variety of ways to score, utilising his height for aerial duels whilst having an extreme range of motion when improvising with flicks and acrobatic solutions.
Being such a unique profile, teams are currently struggling to pin down the best possible way to defend against Woltemade, giving Newcastle the perfect chance to profit from his exciting skillset.
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Eddie Howe’s tactics
With the Premier League becoming more and more direct, with an emphasis on physicality and set-pieces, Eddie Howe has looked to lean into a number of these principles.
Firstly, Newcastle are averaging 72.3 long balls per 90 this season, increased from the 60.9 per 90 attempted last season, looking to play over the opposition press and generate attacks further away from their own goal.
Howe’s men also average 35.6% of their passes per game going forward, joint 4th in this metric with Bournemouth, another side who are benefitting this campaign from direct attacks.
Newcastle have also put a lot of focus on their out of possession principles, an area that was already strong last season, with the Magpies conceding the second-lowest xG so far this season (7.33), only Arsenal have been better with 5.28 xG conceded.
With a strong emphasis on being defensively resolute, setting pressing traps and attacking in a more direct fashion, the profiles at the top end of the pitch are just as important as the back end, and their new German centre-forward is certainly a unique profile.
Gravity
Woltemade is averaging 32 touches per 90 for Newcastle, with the only other centre-forwards averaging more touches per 90 being Hugo Ekitike, Joao Pedro and Georginio Rutter.
What all of these players have in common, is their ability to drop deep, receive the ball and bring others into play, linking with their teammates and having an appreciation for space around them.
Whilst many would use the term “gravity” talking about strikers inside the box, dragging central defenders towards them, Woltemade has a similar gravity when outside the box.
The German is the definition of “good feet for a big man”, allowing him to take multiple touches, protect the ball with his long limbs, invite pressure from defenders and then release his teammates into the space generated.
Anthony Elanga, Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes are perhaps some of the best wingers to profit from this playstyle, wanting to run in behind and attack the goal more directly, making this a perfect combination of attributes for Newcastle.
The mixture of false nine qualities whilst still being 6ft 6 allows Woltemade to effect the game in different ways, posing a number of questions to opposition defenders.
Isak comparison
When comparing Woltemade to Isak in his brief time at Newcastle so far, you can already see the areas the German is excelling and offering a new layer of attributes for Howe’s side.
Firstly, Woltemade is winning more aerial duels (1.5 per 90 compared to Isak’s 0.9 per 90), contesting nearly double per game (4.5 compared to 2.7).
On the other hand, Isak clearly managed to get a higher volume of attacking actions per game, taking more shots, creating more chances and averaging more touches in the opposition box.
However, despite having lower volume, Woltemade is showing his clinical nature, with a higher conversion rate (44.44% compared to Isak’s 30.26%), keeping him at a steady rate of 0.8 goals per 90 (the same as Isak’s per 90 goal scoring numbers last season).
As it is early in the season, it will be interesting to see how the underlying data develops throughout the season, but for now, Woltemade is proving to be an astute replacement for the Swedish striker, despite having a different playstyle.