Newcastle have a major £124million concern – Eddie Howe must address issue fast to rescue season
Newcastle are yet to find the right attacking formula in the post-Alexander Isak era.
Six months have passed since the Swede’s British record £125million transfer to Liverpool and it’s fair to say that both Newcastle and Isak are worse off for it.
The Magpies were left with a race against time to fill the huge void left by the striker and despite being linked with a host of attacking talent, boss Eddie Howe landed Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa.
The towering German had starred for VfB Stuttgart over an impressive 18-month period, catching the attention of Bayern Munich in the process.
Wissa, a Premier League-proven striker, had posted his best goalscoring season with a 19-goal haul for Brentford last term.
Isak’s replacements represented two of a small number of strikers available in the closing hours of the summer transfer window and so far, the lack of options in the market has shown.
A real mish-mash of styles between the pair, few, Howe included, knew just how this was going to pan out.
Misfiring strikers
There was the obligatory optimism among supporters, but that has since ebbed away despite Woltemade’s encouraging start, where he netted five goals in his first seven games.
But not only has the German not scored since the 2-2 draw with Chelsea on December 20, Wissa has also only managed one Premier League goal since making a belated debut on December 6 following a knee injury.
The combined £124m spent on the duo is yet to bear fruit and worse still, the pair are yet to form any type of understanding as a strike duo.
In recent games, Howe has opted to line up without either striker, which is a worrying circumstance with winger Anthony Gordon utilised as a makeshift striker in the recent away trips to Liverpool and Tottenham.
And more so for a club who have been prevented from making the heavy squad investments that they would like due to profit and sustainability rules (PSR).
It leaves Howe with a huge conundrum, not just for this season, but also for the future.
Perhaps a change in formation is the only way Howe can get his attack functioning the way he would like.
Maybe the answer to the Isak issue was at his disposal all along, with Gordon playing as a false nine?
How can Howe better utilise his summer signings?
The panel on the latest episode of talkSPORT’s dedicated Newcastle show, Inside the Toon, addressed the Magpies’ attacking dilemma and explained how the Newcastle boss should tackle the issue.
“I don’t like the idea of Anthony Gordon playing up front, it’s a temporary fix,” said journalist Shaun Custis.
“The elephant in the room is we’ve got to address the Wissa/Woltemade situation. We’ve spent £120million on them and you’ve got to get them in the team – how are you going to do that?
“Howe did experiment with it, he played two up front against Brentford when he brought Woltemade on at half-time to play alongside Wissa, which he’d never previously done.
“But it has to be addressed. We can’t have £120m worth of strikers on the bench. We’ve got to find a way to get them in and get the best out of Gordon out wide.”
talkSPORT’s Jack Cunningham offered another take on the situation, claiming Howe should focus on building the attack around Woltemade, rather than the Congolese striker.
“I think he’ll start Gordon again as the No.9,” Cunningham said in response to Howe benching both summer signings in Tuesday’s 2-1 win at Tottenham.
“Howe has said he wants the press, he wants the mobility and I wouldn’t say it was a dig at Woltemade and Wissa, I think it was more just an indication that for that game that was what he wanted and Gordon did offer that, so i’ll be surprised if Gordon doesn’t start up front again.
“In terms of solving this conundrum, for me, you build the team around Woltemade, 100 per cent.
“We built the team around Alexander Isak, right? The whole team was built around getting the best out of Isak, so now it needs to be about getting the best out of Woltemade.
“I just don’t think at the moment we have the training time to make it work, so we’re having to go for the short-term option and what’s going to get us to the end of the season in the best possible shape.
“And then from there you can build the team around Woltemade.”
Presenter and Newcastle fan Olly Clink agreed with Cunningham’s stance but did reserve some sympathy for Wissa, who was sidelined for the first four months of the season.
“I think Wissa is a really tricky one,” he said. “The only grace I’ll give him is that he did have a long injury, I don’t know if that’s still impacting him.
“I obviously want it to work with Wissa, we’ve invested a lot of money in him, but you look at his profile at 29… I think it was a panic buy.”
Cunningham doubled down on Clink’s assessment of Wissa and spoke of his disappointment at the ex-Brentford man’s output.
“It was a panic buy,” he added. “You needed an immediate impact from him and he looked OK when he first came back but since then… look at his performances.
“What’s annoyed me most is that he’s not even running. He was talking about how much he wanted to join Newcastle – put the effort in, man! Run around, press people up front! What are you doing?
“Against Brentford, his old team, you’d think he’d be desperate to score, desperate to play well, but Brentford’s centre-backs were just sauntering out under no pressure at all. He didn’t do anything!”
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