Newcastle has reached the “complete agreement” of Nick Ultemade, £73 million, one of the most extraordinary transfers in history. And then, reading between David Ornstein’s lines, Alexander Isaac goes to Liverpool.
I thought Newcastle’s madness peaked when I prepared a third £60 million bid for Jorgen Strand Larsen, but the Norwegians were told that any price for wolves would be fine.
Sky Germany’s Florian Plettenberg defeated the story with X: ‘Exclusive | Nick #Woltemade To Newcastle – Done Deal! Full agreement with Stuttgart: fixed fee of 85 million euros and 5 million euros add-on. The #NUFC player is on his way and has already said goodbye to the team.
Woltemade scored 12 Bundesliga goals. And even if the required Farmers League doesn’t allow it to become the best league with global conversions, that’s less than Strandlersen’s 14.
Make sure you clarify. Woltemade is a good striker, and at a reasonable price, he will be celebrating wise business as its fantastical second striker Newcastle was the first target this summer. However, we know that the current striker market is intensifying the costs paid, but Woltemade is valued at £26 million by TransferMarkt.
Perhaps even more comical is the report that Bavaria was quoted £64 million by Stuttgart when he rejected several bids to the Germans earlier this summer. On top of that, Woltemade joined Stuttgart from Werder Bremen on a free transfer a year ago when he was valued at £3.5 million after two goals in 30 Bundesliga appearances in 2023/2024.
Read more: Ranking of the best striker available as a desperate Newcastle given nine possible alternatives
A £10 million rise in prices is a despair tax. Stuttgart saw Newcastle a mile away and set a completely unreasonable rate on unproven strikers who knew the magpie wouldn’t challenge as they didn’t have time in the transfer window to source another option where they already rifle most of the options. And it assumes that the Bundesliga side has set the price, and Newcastle isn’t just picking this extraordinary figure out of the thin air.
He effectively signs his seventh pick striker for £73.4 million after failing to land on Newcastle’s Liam Dellup, Joan Pedro, Hugo Ekichike, Benjamin Sesco, Jorn Wissa and Jorgen Strand Larsen. And that’s if Ollie Watkins, Nicolas Jackson, Alexander Sorloth, and anyone else who has been snabbed close to this bid, who is in an unfortunate position to arrive as a cock-up in their transfer window than his price suggests his price, does not include their reported interest.
Read more: Chelsea offers Newcastle and £10 million to replace Strand Larsen, who flies under Eddie Howe
He probably doesn’t care much, so I hope he doesn’t do that. As always, he doesn’t set his own price and should be looking forward to being something that is now approaching the movement of his dreams.
But we can’t help but feel that the biggest winner of all this will be Alexander Isaac. What is nowhere in David Ornstein’s report of this move says that Ultemed is not Isaac’s successor.
And that would make Newcastle the biggest loser, if this long and painful search of a new striker (or striker) hadn’t guaranteed it would be anyway.
