As good as Nick Woltemade has been in his first few months on Tyneside, no one can deny that the Alexander Isak saga created a summer of chaos that was only settled on deadline day; two weeks into the 2025/26 season.
Speaking to NBC Sports over the international break, Eddie Howe has been discussing our efforts to adapt away from the patterns of play that we got so accustomed to with Isak up top.
He accepts that we “became so used to having Alex in that role”, whether it was where he liked the ball or our style of football to suit his strengths.
Adapting to players that come and go is part of football, but Howe reveals that the “big challenge”, and perhaps an unseen one that many of us haven’t appreciated, has been our lack of training time in between games to work on these changes with Woltemade leading the line.
With us already playing six midweek games this season in the Champions League or Carabao Cup, the boss reveals that Woltemade has often had “no training” in between games, meaning he and the players are having to adapt to each other within games.
Discussing Woltemade’s baptism of fire and the big challenge facing us after no pre-season for our new-look striker department, Howe discussed the tough period of adjustment his players are managing after Isak’s late exit:
“I’ve been delighted with Nick (Woltemade); very very tough for him, he’s been thrown in the deep end, very little training time with us and straight into match days with no training in between either because we had such an intense period of fixtures.
“I think we became so used to having Alex (Isak) in that role and getting used to Alex’s movements and how he liked the ball and we’ll work lots of patterns anyway.”
“So I think the players then go through a period of adjustment when one player comes out and another comes in: to understand where that player then wants the ball and what their strengths are, I think we’re undergoing a sort of process, the big challenge we have is we’re not able to do that through training, we’re having to do that in games really.”
“I think you can see improvements in those dynamics from the last few weeks, and then that will change again hopefully when Yoane’s fit and we can start to use him. It’ll be interesting to see how that changes throughout the season.”
It may seem like excuses, but they are valid points that have undoubtedly impacted us this season.
Where some sides have spent pre-season strengthening connections in the side or entering the season with a settled squad, we have seen Woltemade arrive with no pre-season with the club, a total lack of training time since to help us adapt to a totally different striker to Isak and Yoane Wissa miss out through injury since his deadline day arrival.
The challenge now is finding solutions, whether that’s a formation change, personnel changes, a focus on getting Woltemade in the box more and creating chances for the big man, who has had an exceptional conversion rate for club and country this year.