Nick Woltemade scored on his debut as Newcastle United beat Wolves 1-0 at St James’ Park to claim their first Premier League victory of the season on Saturday.
The German forward, signed from Stuttgart in a club-record deal worth up to £69m, rose at the far post in the 29th minute to head home Jacob Murphy’s cross.
It was enough to separate the sides on a day when Newcastle finally addressed their lack of cutting edge in attack following three subpar games from the players-barred striker corps.
Murphy nearly found the net himself earlier in the match but saw his effort blocked by the Wolves’ Sam Johnstone. Sandro Tonali struck the post before half-time, while Harvey Barnes had a goal disallowed for offside after the break.
Wolves kept applying pressure through Rodrigo Gomes and Hwang Hee-chan, but both were denied by Nick Pope in Newcastle’s goal.
Gary O’Neil’s team have now lost their opening four fixtures for the first time in their history, and the days of Good Ol’ Gary in Wolverhampton might already be numbered.
Woltemade was expected to be eased into the squad, but with Yoane Wissa sidelined by a knee injury, Eddie Howe started the 23-year-old after only a handful of training sessions instead of using still-raw Will Osula from the get-go. Woltemade’s goal brought a standing ovation when he was replaced by the aforementioned Osula on 65 minutes, allowing the backup to keep getting reps against EPL competition.
Howe praised the German afterwards.
“It was great to see Nick score on his debut,” Howe said. “Very strong, I was very pleased with him. He took his goal brilliantly.”
Woltemade, meanwhile, admitted he was cramping by the time of his substitution but described the debut as “amazing.”
“This win was really important, especially at home,” Woltemade said.
The win ended Newcastle’s three-game wait for a league victory and gave the Magpies some very important momentum ahead of their Champions League clash with Barcelona on Thursday.
Howe’s side kept their defensive excellence intact and now have three clean sheets from four games, underlining how solid the unit is with the only negative — until now — being the lack of goals up front.
Newcastle next face Barcelona in their first Champions League group-stage fixture of the season on Thursday, the latest day for MD1 of the new UCL campaign.
