After the heartbreak of the derby day defeat against Sunderland, Nick Woltemade bounced back in tremendous fashion in Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea.
The German grabbed a first half brace, and could have bagged even more, in a performance that served as a very welcome reminder of just how good and clinical a centre forward he is.
Woltemade finding his goalscoring form couldn’t have come at a better time, especially with must-win games against Manchester United and Burnley to come before the end of the year.
And his display on Saturday has attracted rave reviews, particularly from former goalscoring greats Ally McCoist and another notoriously tall Premier League icon…
Speaking to TNT Sports after the Chelsea game, former England icon Peter Crouch delivered huge praise on Woltemade for his strong start to his Toon career, whilst Big Nick revealed his early comparisons to the fellow big man.
Woltemade: “In my old clubs in Germany, they always use to call me Crouchy, that’s why I wanted to take a picture!”
“There are not so many 6’6” players, I think it’s just us: I didn’t see you (Crouch) too much because I’m too young. I saw your goals, a lot of highlights
Crouch: “But I look at you, you’ve got great feet, nice awareness, but you’re doing so well. I’m really pleased, love watching you!”
After going through a mini goalscoring drought, and coupled with the own goal at the Stadium of Light, Saturday’s brace will have done wonders for Woltemade’s confidence, with the former Stuttgart striker immensely happy with being back on the scoresheet.
“Really happy. Last week was not good for me, didn’t feel good. It’s part of the striker life to be honest, I was unlucky last week and now I was lucky. I felt just really happy about this, but that’s part of the game.”
“I believe that sometimes you have to go through every situation in your career. Now I scored the own goal, hopefully I never do it again, but now I had the feeling of how it is, but now I’ve scored two goals, I have this feeling again.”
It may be too soon to say, but being rested for this past Wednesday’s Carabao Cup win against Fulham in favour of Yoane Wissa will have played a big part in Woltemade’s brace.
Finally being allowed time to recover in between big games, we should be seeing much less of the clearly fatigued Woltemade of the last few weeks, and a lot more of the clinical, technical genius that we know he can be.
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