Germany international Nick Woltemade has made himself a popular figure during the early months of his time at Newcastle United.
A key figure with German giants Bayern Munich has made another bizarre claim over their attempts to land Newcastle United record signing Nick Woltemade.
The 23-year-old has enjoyed a spectacular start to his Magpies career after scoring five goals in his first nine appearances for Eddie Howe’s side after he completed a reported £69 million move to St James Park in late August. Woltemade wasted little time in making an impact after he scored the only goal of the game on his debut against Wolverhampton Wanderers before finding the net in three consecutive Premier League games against Arsenal, Nottingham Forest and Brighton and Hove Albion.
There were two major career landmarks racked up in recent weeks as the former Stuttgart man grabbed his first ever Champions League goal in a 4-0 win at Union Saint-Gilloise before getting off the mark at senior international level with Germany when he got the only goal in a World Cup qualifier against Northern Ireland. Woltemade has already become something of a cult figure with Magpies supporters and is clearly popular within the United dressing room and there are high hopes he can continue to evolve over the coming months.
However, one high-ranking official at Bayern has claimed the Magpies star ‘absolutely wanted’ to join his club rather than making a big money switch to Tyneside.
Fussball Transfers quote Bayern director Max Eberl as saying: “Nick Woltemade repeatedly confirmed to us that he absolutely wanted to join FC Bayern, but VfB Stuttgart was unwilling to accept our offer. Which is the right of any club that has an ongoing contract with a professional. Nick is still a great player and a super guy, but he’s a different type of player than Florian Wirtz. Ultimately, we wanted to stick to our budget strategy.”
Demand
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.placeholder image
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. | Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images.
The comments come just weeks after Bayern legend and current board member Karl-Heinz Rummenigge labelled the Magpies as ‘idiots’ for paying out a club record fee for the former Germany international.
He told SportBild: “I’ll be honest. When this story with Woltemade and then the demand from Stuttgart came up, I, as well as Uli, Herbert Hainer, Jan Dreesen, and Max Eberl, I said – folks, we’re slowly getting to a level that I simply don’t find acceptable anymore.
“We shouldn’t fulfil every demand to make someone happy, especially the financiers at VfB Stuttgart. I can only congratulate those in Stuttgart for finding – I’ll use quotation marks here – an idiot who paid that much money. Because we certainly wouldn’t have done that in Munich!”
Despite those comments from key figures within the Bundesliga champions, Newcastle remain fully focused on helping their club record signing build on what has been an impressive start to life at St James Park.
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