**Newcastle United's newest hero, Nick Woltemade, is set to hand the Magpies a significant advantage as they prepare to take on Barcelona on Thursday night.**
Barcelona head to St James' Park in week one of the Champions League with Newcastle fans hoping for a repeat of 1997, where the Geordie spirit ultimately won the day, thanks in no small part to a certain centre-forward, Faustino Asprilla.
This time around, Newcastle will be pinning their hopes on a largely untested entity up front in Nick Woltemade.
The 23-year-old signed from Stuttgart late in the summer window and has only made one appearance for Newcastle so far, scoring the only goal in the 1-0 win against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
> [](https://twitter.com/ESPNFC/status/1967953557014855851)
Nick Woltemade has a significant height advantage over the Barcelona back line
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Woltemade wasn't expected to start that game as it was widely believed Eddie Howe would have preferred to introduce the German into the team a lot slower to ease the pressure on the youngster following his record-breaking move. However, an injury to Yoane Wissa meant Woltemade was thrown in at the deep end, but you'd never have known it to look at him.
Wissa's injury is going to keep him out of action for several games, meaning Woltemade is going to have to adapt quickly and simply deal with the pressure of being Newcastle's main man up top.
Thankfully, he will have a distinct advantage on Thursday as the 6'6" German international is a full three inches taller than Barcelona's tallest defender, according to ESPN.
Corners could be a massive advantage for Newcastle on Thursday
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When you add 6'7" Dan Burn to the mix, Newcastle could cause Barcelona a lot of problems from set plays, so the Magpies, as well as going for goal, should be aware of how significant an advantage a corner could be.
It's the perfect game to have those speculative efforts as a deflection, or a parried save could lead to a corner kick from which Newcastle should be able to capitalise.
In fairness, we should be taking those shots anyway, as you never know what can happen from a long-range effort. Our biggest problem lately is that we always try and walk the ball over the line. Only Jacob Murphy and Sandro Tonali seem to have the stones to just have a go. It's time to play the odds.