Nick Woltemade

[Heron]

11 minutes ago, Minhosa said:

Clearly demonstrated his technical ability since his arrival but he needs to find a nasty streak and bulk up if he’s going to succeed in the PL long term. 
 

Soft as fuck and too slow to play as a lone 9 imho. Cannot press effectively.

 

Hes done well, really well, at times but he’s a sticky plaster for me. A temporary fix. This shit isn’t working more often than not. 
 

Change the system to suit him because what we’re asking him to do is simply not sustainable. 
 

He looked completely lost and overwhelmed today. Like we sent a kid to do a man’s job. 

I think this wasn't your intention so sorry for calling it out but it is rare for a 6 ft 10 or whatever person to have good acceleration to enable good pressing like.

 

If this si our new CF and we are intent on keeping him then we need to find a new way to play that involves our wingers. Our wingers aren't good enough ... and so there's an issue.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2025 by Heron

[SAK]

1 hour ago, et tu brute said:

We have needed a playmaker and someone who can control play for three years now and we're still waiting. Should be the key target signing this January, it won't be though

Would help if our midfield players moved into space to give the player on the ball an option, our midfield three when we have possession are so static.

[Minhosa]

5 minutes ago, Heron said:

I think this wasn't your intention so sorry for calling it out but it is rare for a 6 ft 10 or whatever person to have good acceleration to enable good pressing like.

 

If this si our new CF and we are intent on keeping him then we need to find a new way to play that involves our wingers. Our wingers aren't good enough ... and so there's an issue.

 

 

 

That’s why I said we need to change the system. 

[OverThere]

I don't think Wolte fits with a 4-3-3. We need to figure out how he can be used better. Is that 4-4-1-1 with Wissa or something else? He is just not mobile enough to be up there on his own. This is what EH is paid the big bucks to figure out 

[janpawel]

I think with Wolte's style, we need lethal wingers, not unproductive pace merchants like we've got. We need wingers like Mbeumo, Semenyo etc. 

 

I've said it before but we need our version of Salah, Mane and Firmino. 

 

Transition football is everything these days, and we've lost most of our transition threat from losing Isak. Wolte has other skills which I love, but we need massively increase our threat on the wings and let him do his thing in the middle

[AyeDubbleYoo]

In theory he should work well playing in goal-scoring wide forwards and dropping the ball off to midfielders like Bruno, Tonali and Ramsey etc moving forward. Maybe we need to let him come much deeper and play the wingers much more narrow, so the CBs can't all follow him. 

 

I'm not sure he would work well behind another striker because he'd be required to cover a lot of ground defensively as well. 

 

That said, he'll lose his place to Wissa soonish anyway if we can't get him more into the game. 

[Heron]

2 minutes ago, janpawel said:

I think with Wolte's style, we need lethal wingers, not unproductive pace merchants like we've got. We need wingers like Mbeumo, Semenyo etc. 

 

I've said it before but we need our version of Salah, Mane and Firmino. 

 

Transition football is everything these days, and we've lost most of our transition threat from losing Isak. Wolte has other skills which I love, but we need massively increase our threat on the wings and let him do his thing in the middle

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I really think Barnes left and Gordon right is the only way to go with the wide players we have in the squad right now. Unless we're signing a left-footed RW with real goal threat in Jan. 

[sixx]

He’s surprisingly bad in the air and doesn’t really have that natural striker’s instinct in the box. I’m still very excited by the idea of him playing off Wissa but it’s becoming obvious that PL defenders have easily figured out a way to nullify him.

[KaKa]

In my opinion the only aerial ability that concerns me is when he is trying to score and he has shown that he is well capable in those instances. Even yesterday 

 

In some respect I'm glad he isn't comfortable competing for long balls in general play, because we shouldn't be fucking launching the ball at him that way. It's embarrassing. Again, the concern is why we have been doing that so often and cannot play the ball through midfield!

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Yeah, we shouldn't be firing aerial balls into him anyway, unless they're crosses. 

[Nucasol]

4 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Yeah, we shouldn't be firing aerial balls into him anyway, unless they're crosses. 

Exactly. He’s not Niall fucking Quinn.

[PauloGeordio]

[AyeDubbleYoo]

He was absolutely gutted like, hard to watch. 

[Lush Vlad]

11 hours ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

I really think Barnes left and Gordon right is the only way to go with the wide players we have in the squad right now. Unless we're signing a left-footed RW with real goal threat in Jan. 

 

So do I.  But I don't think Howe even considers playing Gordon there and the few times he has played there.  It seems to me like he has been a bit huffy about it.  

 

On Woltemade, I do think other teams CB's are just getting touch tight to him now and play him super aggressively.  Knowing he won't spin them and do them for pace and also that we won't have anyone anywhere near him for a lay off and quick passing patterns.  So he has about 2-3 touches at best to try and fashion something and get it out his feet.  All whilst under-pressure and harassed by a defender. 

 

He's not blameless.  As he might some awful decisions when he had time and space yesterday.  But it is poor that he has been here all this time.  Yet we are no closer to making proper use of his very unique skillset.  

 

He regularly looks isolated and on the periphery.  We should be getting him involved at every opportunity, but we go through long spells where he doesn't even have a touch.  Going back to something like the Josh King/Callum Wilson second striker and striker link up that Howe used at Bournemouth, might be one way to actually change our fortunes in attack and with our build up. 

[madras]

53 minutes ago, Lush Vlad said:

 

So do I.  But I don't think Howe even considers playing Gordon there and the few times he has played there.  It seems to me like he has been a bit huffy about it.  

 

On Woltemade, I do think other teams CB's are just getting touch tight to him now and play him super aggressively.  Knowing he won't spin them and do them for pace and also that we won't have anyone anywhere near him for a lay off and quick passing patterns.  So he has about 2-3 touches at best to try and fashion something and get it out his feet.  All whilst under-pressure and harassed by a defender. 

 

He's not blameless.  As he might some awful decisions when he had time and space yesterday.  But it is poor that he has been here all this time.  Yet we are no closer to making proper use of his very unique skillset.  

 

He regularly looks isolated and on the periphery.  We should be getting him involved at every opportunity, but we go through long spells where he doesn't even have a touch.  Going back to something like the Josh King/Callum Wilson second striker and striker link up that Howe used at Bournemouth, might be one way to actually change our fortunes in attack and with our build up. 

Hopefully that changes with Wissa. I even think Wolt and Osula could be fun 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

36 minutes ago, madras said:

Hopefully that changes with Wissa. I even think Wolt and Osula could be fun 

Osula could be our best RW at the moment. 

[mosstef]

Only scores spectacular goals. Also when it's OG's. It was a cracking header tbf.

[Kanj]

14 hours ago, janpawel said:

I think with Wolte's style, we need lethal wingers, not unproductive pace merchants like we've got. We need wingers like Mbeumo, Semenyo etc. 

 

I've said it before but we need our version of Salah, Mane and Firmino. 

 

Transition football is everything these days, and we've lost most of our transition threat from losing Isak. Wolte has other skills which I love, but we need massively increase our threat on the wings and let him do his thing in the middle

 

Yep, been saying this for a while. Our wingers work with an Isak type, maybe a Wissa. But they won't work with Woltemade. They have to be dynamos that carry their own threat every single match and can't just be anonymous. Barnes works for now with Nick as he links up play and is a goal threat. But eventually our 2 starting wingers need to be a Semenyo, Raphinha, Rafa Leao type. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

18 minutes ago, Kanj said:

Yep, been saying this for a while. Our wingers work with an Isak type, maybe a Wissa. But they won't work with Woltemade. They have to be dynamos that carry their own threat every single match and can't just be anonymous. Barnes works for now with Nick as he links up play and is a goal threat. But eventually our 2 starting wingers need to be a Semenyo, Raphinha, Rafa Leao type. 

 

I think this is exactly the type of players that Gordon and Barnes are meant to be though

[Anderson]

Aye, Gordon's constant underperforming is one of the main issues for Wolte at the minute, he should be thriving off him. That and you'd have expected Ramsey to come in and give us a runner in behind from midfield, which we could desperately do with too, but Eddie seems to completely not fancy him for one reason or another.

[Kanj]

59 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

I think this is exactly the type of players that Gordon and Barnes are meant to be though

 

meant to be is one thing, performing is the other. Barnes is doing it to some extent right now. We need the performing week in and out. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

2 minutes ago, Kanj said:

 

meant to be is one thing, performing is the other. Barnes is doing it to some extent right now. We need the performing week in and out. 

 

I know we do, but the point is they are the type of players that 'should' work OK with Woltemade. In fact when he signed I expected him to multiply their impact on games. Obviously we haven't done it.

[mush]

Absolutely gutted for him like. Aside from anything else, he seems like a really nice lad.

 

Wonder if he was caught off-guard by the intensity of the occasion, because he looked a bit rabbit in the headlights at points yesterday, when he's looked pretty assured so far before that.

 

Hopefully Wissa being back will take a little pressure off him. There's a very good player there, we just need to figure out how to get the best out of him 

[gbandit]

3 hours ago, Anderson said:

Aye, Gordon's constant underperforming is one of the main issues for Wolte at the minute, he should be thriving off him. That and you'd have expected Ramsey to come in and give us a runner in behind from midfield, which we could desperately do with too, but Eddie seems to completely not fancy him for one reason or another.

I do think that Ramsey will come good, I’m sure of it. Joelinton probably needs to be out the picture for him to completely flourish though. Gordon is nailed on to be a top player for six games a season, an average player for half the games and a sucking scowler for the remainder. Elanga, man, I know he is a good professional and will be training hard but fuck me, he’s about as good with his feet as Pope