Nick Woltemade was arriving into a unique situation at St James’ Park during the summer.
On one side, it was difficult to disappoint, as Newcastle were crying out for a striker. On the other hand, he was replacing one of the best strikers in the world, and he has a different style.
An adaptation period was likely for both the striker and his teammates, but there have been signs of improvement in that relationship since the international break.
Before the international break, Woltemade managed to score four goals in his first eight Premier League matches. Despite this, his underlying metrics weren’t the best and he was having to feed on scraps. He was making the most of them, but his impressive record in front of goal wasn’t likely to continue unless he received more service.
In this period that ended with the Brentford game, the German international was averaging 1.83 shots per 90 minutes. For context, Jacob Murphy was averaging 3.97. There are issues with the attacking patterns of play if a large share of your attacking output is going through Murphy rather than Woltemade.
Murphy is a good player who can chip in with goals. However, he isn’t likely to score the number that we require. Woltemade, although he is still young, has the potential to score upwards of 15 goals in a league season, as his impressive finishing rate showed.
The task for Eddie Howe during the international break was to find a way to get more shooting opportunities to the centre forward.
Since the international break, we have managed to take seven points from nine available. The improvement in attack has been key to this. Looking at the shooting stats, Woltemade is now averaging 2.7 shots per 90 minutes. Although it is a smaller sample size than the one analysed above, it is notable that the German is almost getting one more shot per ninety minutes.
The disappointment will be that he has only scored once in these three games, as he has recorded an expected goals (xG) of 1.46. As it is a small sample size, it isn’t too worrying. The header that was cleared off the line against Tottenham would have found the back of the net on other occasions.
His role in the opening goal against Tottenham showed how the team are starting to understand the way Woltemade plays football. The German is a player who trusts himself to play the ball first time and he is always aware of his surroundings. He managed to shift the ball back to Bruno Guimaraes and recorded the assist for the Brazilian.
Woltemade will want to be scoring more goals, as any striker would. The signs over the last few matches are that he is going to be getting into more goal-scoring situations than earlier in the season. If he manages to keep his shot volume at the current level, more goals will follow.
Given his price tag, it can be forgotten that Woltemade is still raw in senior football. He is still learning his game and the scope for improvement is huge. Even in the small number of games he has played for us, the uptick in performance is clear. Yoane Wissa’s pending return will only help push the German further.
💙 Follow Us on Facebook
We share updates, news, and helpful posts every day.
Click below to like & follow our page to stay connected!
