William Osula of Newcastle United celebrates with Bruno Guimaraes and Dan Burn after scoring the second goal during the Premier League match between Newcastle United and Liverpool at St James' Park on August 25, 2025 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.placeholder image
William Osula of Newcastle United celebrates with Bruno Guimaraes and Dan Burn after scoring the second goal during the Premier League match between Newcastle United and Liverpool at St James' Park on August 25, 2025 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. | Getty Images
Newcastle United have three first-team strikers but only one of them is fully fit.
Woltemade has enjoyed an excellent start to life on Tyneside following his £69million club-record move from Bundesliga side Stuttgart, having scored four goals in five starts.
And it is just as well that he has adapted quickly too, with fellow new signing Yoane Wissa sidelined for at least another two weeks.
Wissa joined the Magpies on summer transfer deadline day - just a couple of days after Woltemade arrived - for £55m from Brentford but is yet to make his debut due to a knee injury sustained on international duty with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The 29-year-old was initially ruled out until after the October international break, with today’s Premier League trip to Brighton & Hove Albion pencilled in as a potential return date.
But speaking ahead of the 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest just under a fortnight ago, Eddie Howe revealed the striker’s return had been pushed back a further couple of weeks.
The hope is that Wissa can, at the very least, be back in contention for the visit to former club Brentford on Sunday, November 9.
Newcastle United issue Yoane Wissa injury update
Howe said on Friday: “Yeah, so we've seen Yoane back on the grass, which is, well, the first time on the grass, which is great to see. And I think his knees reacted pretty well to that work so far. So it will now be a case of trying to step him up gradually.
“Yeah, in terms of timelines, similar to what I said last time, I get confused with the dates as to where we were, but nothing's changed.
Read More
“He's been managed by the physio team and the doctors really well so far. He's responded well to the treatment. I think the specialist initially gave him a diagnosis of six to eight weeks and he's on track for that.
“We were obviously trying to work towards the six but it looks like it's going to be more towards the eight, as I said before but there's been no issues. I know there's been a lot of media noise around his injury but a lot of that's been false information. So we're just working towards that timescale.”
Eddie Howe reveals ‘slight ankle injury’ for Will Osula
With Wissa expected to miss the majority of the seven games in 22 days, a period that begins today, Howe is under no illusions of the importance of managing Woltemade’s minutes.
When asked how he planned to manage the striker situation, Howe namechecked Will Osula and Anthony Gordon as rotation options, though also revealed Osula is currently nursing an ankle injury.
That said, while it is restricting Osula’s training time, the issue isn’t expected to rule him out of any matches.
Howe said: “I think we continue to take it on a game-by-game basis. We look at the fitness and form of all the players.
“I think we have a few options. Will Osula has done very well when he's come onto the pitch. He's nursing a slight ankle injury at the moment, so he's not, I'd say, 100% training with us in every moment but I'd say when he steps on the pitch, he will be fit.
“Of course, Anthony Gordon's played up there, so we do have options. But of course, we would welcome Yoane to be fit and available and share that load with Nick. But so far, Nick's carried that burden really well, I think.”
Continue Reading