Newcastle star Anthony Gordon has described new team-mate Nick Woltemade as “very similar” to Harry Kane, after the pair could have been playing together this season had Bayern Munich wanted to pay what the Magpies did.
Woltemade has made a great start to life in the Premier League. The 23-year-old German striker has three goals in four league games, scoring against Wolves, Arsenal and dispatching a perfect penalty against Nottingham Forest.
He’s also scored once in the Champions League, and is proving a good return on Newcastle‘s £69million investment.
He was on the radar of Bayern Munich, and could therefore have been playing with Harry Kane. Given he went to Newcastle, the squad have got to benefit from a player in the same mould as Kane, per Magpies winger Gordon.
He said: “I think they do play a very similar style of football, in terms of they want to almost be the quarterback – they want to come in and create, they don’t just want to finish the chances like a typical striker would do.
“For me, personally, I think it helps me – I think my style suits playing with that style of striker, because I can run off them. If defenders want to go and engage with them, I can run off the back, so I think it’s really positive for me and I really enjoy it.”
One of the reasons that Woltemade ended up at Newcastle and not Bayern was that the serial German champions were unwilling pay the large fee that the striker commanded.
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Bayern board member Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said of the transfer: “I can only congratulate the people in Stuttgart for finding – let me use quotation marks here – ‘a fool’ who paid that much money, because we certainly wouldn’t have done that in Munich.”
Gordon has recently hit out at Rummenigge for his comments against Woltemade.
He said: “I don’t know why you’d comment on a player who is not at your club.
“It’s a bit stupid to be honest, especially when the player has started really well.
“Had he started really poorly then you make that comment, but he’s scored three goals in four games, so it was a bit of a weird comment.”
And while Gordon sees similarities between Woltemade and Kane, he feels the Magpies striker is a different player to former team-mate Alexander Isak.
He said: “They’re two completely different players, so it’s going to take us time to get used to his style of play.”
Newcastle already seem to have gotten used to knowing how to find Woltemade, as he’s scored two headers, taking advantage of his 6ft 5in frame.
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