Newcastle United fans, fear not. Nick Woltemade may not have shone on international duty this week, but there are reasons for it.
That’s at least according to BILD, who move to defend the new €85m Newcastle signing today amid criticism and concern about his recent performance.
They have a piece on the Newcastle striker today and explain why he ‘hasn’t sparked’ for Germany under Julian Nagelsmann so far.
The focus was very much on the striker after months of transfer speculation, particularly around Bayern Munich, and then his €85m move to Newcastle to replace Alexander Isak. There are also his performances at the U21 European Championship, where he hot Germany to the final.
That had led to the football world eagerly awaiting to see how Woltemade would perform on the pitch this week as Germany took on Slovakia and Northern Ireland. The hoped-for performance didn’t happen in either game, but BILD explain why that was the case.
They say that against Slovakia it wasn’t just the Newcastle signing who was ‘weak’, the whole Germany team was. Therefore, he shouldn’t be criticised. And against Northern Ireland he bagged an assist and that shouldn’t be forgotten despite a ‘clumsy’ display until the 61st minute when he was subbed off.
On that latter point, they say it is also not clear that the boos which ringed out at that point were aimed at the Newcastle man for his performance or the fact he was being subbed off.
The newspaper does say that Woltemade needs to adapt dramatically on the international stage but it should be pointed out that in Stuttgart he’s mostly played as a second striker alongside someone else.
That wasn’t his role with Germany in this international break as the absence of Niclas Füllkrug forced him to be the central striker. They say, ‘he isn’t really that’ and his strengths lie more in technique and understanding of the game than the ‘penalty-area play’ of a traditional striker.
He’s even been working on his technique, particularly heading, in special training sessions for months in an effort to improve on that front.
BILD then put the spotlight on his teammates, saying his teammates didn’t provide a lot of assists. Florian Wirtz was particularly lacking on this front.
They even argue that the fee Newcastle have paid for him shouldn’t be put on his shoulders. In fact, ‘it should be clear to everyone’ that the fee is ‘extremely high’ and doesn’t quite correspond to his current market value. Thus, expecting him to live up to that figure is unfair.
Of course, Woltemade will be judged on goals and assists but for now, it seems they want to defend the new Newcastle signing from any criticism.
