Great attitude but goals have dried up – what’s happened to Woltemade?

Nick Woltemade had his cap pulled over his eyes as he left the Stadium of Light.

But there was no way the towering Newcastle United forward – all 6ft 6in of him – was going to slip out of the stadium unnoticed.

Not after his own goal settled the Wear-Tyne derby a couple of months ago.

Woltemade’s team-mates were booed by the Sunderland supporters gathered outside as they climbed on to the team bus – but Woltemade was applauded, cheered and even serenaded with chants of “Hero! Hero! Hero!” after inadvertently heading Newcastle’s bitter rivals to a 1-0 victory back in December.

Some players might have taken a bit of time to come back from a blow like that.

But Woltemade responded in immediate and emphatic fashion, scoring a first-half double against Chelsea in his next Newcastle start less than a week later.

It was a sign of his mental strength, and Woltemade has had to draw on those reserves of resilience lately after failing to find the back of the net for Eddie Howe’s side since December.

“He started so well,” the Newcastle head coach said. “Everyone expected him to continue. As much as we wanted that for him, that’s very difficult to do.”

It is a question few could have imagined asking not so long ago.

Not after Woltemade scored six goals from his first six efforts on target for the club, including bullet headers against Arsenal and Wolves, an audacious flick against Union Saint-Gilloise and a stunning backheel at Brighton.

Such an instant impact even took Woltemade by surprise following his £69m move from Stuttgart in the final days of the summer window.

But it got to the stage where the German went into every game firmly believing he would find the back of the net.

Even those closest to Woltemade were taken aback by the devastating manner in which he dispatched a penalty against Nottingham Forest in a 2-0 victory back in October.

However, it was never going to be sustainable for Woltemade to keep scoring at such a clinical rate, particularly when he was relied upon to do so while fellow forward Yoane Wissa recovered from a knee injury.

Wissa has since returned to ease the burden, but the pair are both struggling in front of goal during an intense run of fixtures.

The schedule for club and country has been unrelenting, which has limited the amount of time Woltemade has had to properly work with the coaching staff on the training pitches.

That has been huge frustration internally as Newcastle continue to adapt following the departure of a very different type of striker in Alexander Isak, who joined Liverpool last summer.

But Woltemade is understood to be calm about his goal drought.

It is also easy to forget that Woltemade is still only 23.

He only became a regular starter at Stuttgart in December 2024, before joining Newcastle a few months later after the club missed out on, among others, Hugo Ekitike, Joao Pedro and Benjamin Sesko.

He had not played outside his homeland before, and had to quickly adapt to the speed and physicality of the Premier League, as well as a system previously tailored to a rapid striker who led the defensive press from the front and ran in behind, which is not Woltemade’s game.

The Bundesliga is fierce in its own right, but it is rather telling that Woltemade has only been awarded four fouls in his last 11 top-flight fixtures.

Premier League analysts and defenders now have had a greater body of work to study in order to try to limit his influence in this Newcastle side compared to earlier in the campaign.

There have been times where Woltemade has not been in the box – lacking those instincts a traditional poacher has – and other occasions where he has looked isolated up front and not had enough runners near him, which is down to the way Newcastle have been set up.

No wonder, then, Woltemade is only averaging 1.9 shots per game in the league this season.

Woltemade failed to even hit the target with a couple of headers from his most recent chances in front of goal, against Wolves last month, but service has also clearly been an issue for a player who thrives off balls to feet.

Although Newcastle lead the way for crosses in the Premier League (637), only eight top-flight sides have a worse crossing accuracy (21.5%).

Also, rather than being a traditional target man who plays with his back to goal, the technical Woltemade looks most comfortable operating in the spaces between the midfield and the box.

It was from these areas that at Stuttgart he often showcased a unique ability – for someone so tall to dribble past defenders and link up with those around him.

Howe fielded Woltemade in such a role behind Wissa in a 4-2-3-1 against Bournemouth last month and revisited the experiment as Newcastle attempted to get back into the game in the second half versus Brentford at the weekend.

But the head coach readily admitted his attack has “not quite functioned fully yet” as he attempts to bed his summer signings “into the team format”.