A fortnight after completing a club-record £69m move from Stuttgart, Woltemade enjoyed a dream St James’ Park debut as his powerful back-post header from Jacob Murphy’s cross secured a 1-0 win over Wolves.
The 23-year-old had only had four training sessions prior to making his maiden appearance for the Magpies, having spent most of the last two weeks on international duty with Germany.
But he already feels as though he has settled into life on Tyneside and is ready to embrace the challenge of being Newcastle’s record signing.
“It takes some weeks, but I already feel really good here,” said the striker. “I already felt welcome when I met the fans in the city and at the club, really that’s kind of special.
“I haven’t had too many clubs in my life, but this already feels really good. The people who are working here are really nice and I already feel welcome. It’s like they have an eye on you, so it’s really good for me.
“When my agent told me Newcastle had an interest, I was directly really happy about it. Then the talk starts, and the talk's been really good. I felt really welcome and had nice conversations with the coach. I’m just happy now to be here.”
Woltemade has joined a Newcastle side who enjoyed an extremely successful season last term, winning the club’s first piece of domestic silverware for five decades as they lifted the Carabao Cup and finishing fifth to secure a place in the Champions League. Can the Magpies kick on again this season?
“We have a good team,” said Woltemade. “It’s an amazing club, with such a nice stadium. There are good fans and good players, and a good team spirit. I’ve only been here for four days, but I already feel the spirit is really good.
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“It's difficult to say how it will go, but right now I can say we have such a good team spirit and want to keep going.”
The pressure on Woltemade to hit the ground running increased last week when his fellow summer arrival, Yoane Wissa, suffered a knee injury while on international duty with DR Congo.
A series of scans and a consultation with a specialist have revealed that Wissa’s injury, while not an ACL, will keep him on the sidelines for around six weeks, meaning he is unlikely to be available until the end of next month’s international break. That will rule him out of three league matches, two Champions League games and the home tie with Bradford City that marks the start of Newcastle’s Carabao Cup defence.
With Wissa unavailable, Newcastle need Woltemade to perform, and the German delivered at the weekend as he outmuscled Emmanuel Agbadou to head home Murphy’s cross.
For all that he stands at six foot six, Woltemade is not renowned for his aerial prowess, but he has been working on his heading and was delighted to open his Magpies account with the type of goal that was reminiscent of the likes of Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand and Duncan Ferguson, some of his celebrated predecessors in the Newcastle attack.
“I’ve worked a lot on it [heading] in the last weeks, the last months and the last year,” he said. “With my height, I guess you have to. You can get more goals if you can have a good header.
“A header always feels good as a striker, especially if you work on it every week. So, I was just happy when the ball was going in.”
Nick Woltemade scores Newcastle's winner against Wolves*(Image: Owen Humphreys/PA)*
Woltemade wants to lead the line, but his game will also be about dropping deep to link play in order to maximise the impact of his technical ability.
“I like to drop and also come in the room where the midfielders are sometimes to make an overload or something,” he said. “I just played the first game now and only had four training sessions. The guys already knew that they play more on my feet, that they can play the ball to me also.”
Attention now switches to Thursday night, and the small matter of a Champions League opener against Barcelona. When it comes to footballing nights on Tyneside, they don’t come much bigger than that.
“It’s such a nice game,” said Woltemade. “It’s my first Champions League game at home here at St. James’ Park against Barcelona. I guess it can’t be better, I’m really looking forward to it.”