Nick Woltemade and Newcastle United have to cope with a tough setback. A black Sunday afternoon ends for the German international at halftime.
Nick Woltemade experienced a tough setback in the Premier League with Newcastle United on Sunday. Despite taking an early lead after four minutes, the Magpies were already trailing 1-2 at halftime against relegation-threatened West Ham United.
Accordingly drastic were the measures taken by coach Eddie Howe at halftime. The Englishman reacted to his team’s performance with a triple substitution. Top scorer Woltemade also had to give way and was replaced by William Osula.
Nick Woltemade was substituted at halftime
“I could have substituted anyone,” Howe explained his reasons for the substitutions after the game and said: “That reflected our game situation. It very rarely happens that I feel like that. I don’t think that has happened to me since I took office as coach of Newcastle.”
Appalling away record for Newcastle
Even after the substitutions, however, there was no upswing at Newcastle. The final 1-3 defeat continued a disastrous away trend. The Magpies have been waiting for an away win in the league since April and are only in 13th place in the Premier League. An upward trend after three competitive wins in a row recently seems to have been stopped abruptly.
“The dynamic wasn’t there. The physicality and the energy were missing. We scored early and could have taken control of the game, but we didn’t and let it slip away,” Howe analyzed his team’s performance.
Howe: “Not the Newcastle of the past seasons”
He continued, “It didn’t look like a Newcastle team that we’ve seen in past seasons. The body language, the collective spirit on the pitch – many small things were missing. That was a byproduct of the fact that we just weren’t mentally where we needed to be.”
For the currently injured Niclas Füllkrug and West Ham, the only second win of the season was an important liberation. “I think the fans saw something in the team today,” said coach Nuno Espírito Santo, who celebrated his first three points since taking office and emphasized: “That’s what we want. How can we as a team show our fans that we want to fight and change the situation?”
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