The Nick Woltemade price is right for Newcastle United
Nick Woltemade is not the first Newcastle United striker to have his transfer fee questioned, but he's so far had all the answers.
Forget about the price tag.
Not for the first time, a Newcastle United striker’s price has been questioned.
Bayern Munich executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge made headlines when he suggested that the Premier League team were “idiots” for paying a club-record £69million fee to sign Nick Woltermade from VfB Stuttgart after the Bundesliga champions failed with several bids for the 23-year-old.
Woltermade has answered with his feet (and head).
He netted in Wednesday’s 4-0 Champions League win over Union Saint-Gilloise – the club’s biggest-ever group-stage win, and first away victory in the competition proper for more than 22 years – to take his goal tally to three from six appearances.
That’s a very good start.
Transfer fees
It was not so long ago that the £25million release fee that Newcastle paid to Burnley for Chris Wood, back at St James’ Park on Sunday with Nottingham Forest, was being questioned on Tyneside – and elsewhere.
At the time, I made the point that that figure was probably the going rate for a reliable Premier League striker who had just turned 30.
Strikers do not come cheap.
Wood, signed amid an injury crisis, had a good year at St James’ Park. He gave the team a much-needed focal point up front in the absence of Callum Wilson, and helped the club stay up that season. Wood then played his part as the team pushed on towards Europe the following season. The fee, mocked by some, was money well spent.
I interviewed Wood in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in late 2022 during a mid-season break for the World Cup in Qatar.
Wood, sat in the team hotel’s cool lobby, reflected on his first year at the club after training in the December heat earlier in the day.
Barely a month later, he was gone, and the next time I spoke to him was for FourFourTwo at Nottingham Forest’s training ground on a chilly Nottinghamshire day.
Finding himself behind Isak and Callum Wilson in the pecking order, Wood had spoken to Howe about his future the previous winter.
“I spoke with Eddie, and he just said ‘at the moment, it seems you’re going to be third choice’,” said Wood, who was allowed to join Forest, initially on loan.
Wood has been playing week in, week out at the City Ground – and scoring week in, week out.
The club-record £60million fee Newcastle paid for Isak looked expensive too early in his career at St James’ Park as he adjusted to the English game, but he quickly established himself as a world-class striker during his time on Tyneside. Money very well spent.
United reinvested the British-record £125million fee they eventually banked from Liverpool for Carabao Cup-winner Isak in Woltemade and Yoane Wissa this summer.
There was also Joelinton. It was evident that Joelinton was not a £40million No.9 during his difficult first season at the club.
It turned out that Newcastle, however, had signed a far more valuable midfielder following an enforced positional change in Howe’s first season on Tyneside. Again, money well spent.
Woltemade’s big impact
So 6ft 6in Woltemade has already made a big impression, but the team is still getting used to him – and he is still getting used to the team.
Woltemade, comfortable dropping deeper, a different player to Isak. Howe’s side is evolving and changing. Nothing can stay the same.
Howe said: “I think he’s started very strongly in what’s been a difficult period for him, because he’s thrust straight into action, no training time with us, really, of any note and I think he’s done really, really well, so we’re really pleased to have him with us, and the transfer fee, for me, is absolutely irrelevant.”
Time will tell just how well the money was spent, but Woltemade has filled his boots in his first few weeks at the club.
And what is relevant right now is Woltemade’s sizeable contribution on the pitch – at home and abroad.