‘Madness’ - Newcastle United star fires back at Bayern Munich after ‘idiot’ comments
Nick Woltemade has already scored six goals at Newcastle United to silence the Bayern Munich haters.
Nick Pope has defended Nick Woltemade against the wave of attack from several Bayern Munich figures.
There has been a non-stop diatribe of sour grapes echoing from the continent since the German joined Newcastle United. Toon chiefs stumped up a club-record £69million to sign Woltemade to help fill the imminent Alexander Isak void.
Earlier in the summer, Bayern saw a €60million bid turned down. Woltemade eventually joining the Magpies compounded their misery as Liverpool pipped them to Florian Wirtz during the same window.
Bayern Munich officials speak out
Bayern club legends, the manager, board members and sporting directors queued up to take aim at Woltemade following his Newcastle move. The most infamous of these digs was from German icon Karl-Heinz Rumenigge, who called the Magpies “idiots” for stumping up £69million.
“I'll be honest, when this story with Woltemade and then the demand from Stuttgart came up, I, as well as Uli, Herbert Hainer, Jan Dreesen, and Max Eberl, said - folks, we're slowly getting to a level that I simply don't find acceptable anymore,” he said. “I can only congratulate those in Stuttgart for finding - I'll use quotation marks here - an idiot who paid that much money. Because we certainly wouldn't have done that in Munich.”
‘It’s madness’ - Nick Pope
Speaking on the Fozcast, Toon goalkeeper Pope stuck up for his new teammate regarding the noise from Europe. He said: “It’s madness. Obviously, the standard line is I don’t talk about players from another team. Do we not do that anymore? Now he’s banging goals every few days, it looks great for Nick.
“He’ll take anything like that in his stride. He’s very mellow and settled into the group great. He’s top. When you bring a new No.9 in, obviously it’s a big signing, you're so giddy to train with him and see what he’s like. Straight away we thought ‘Yeah, we’ve got a player’.”
Eddie Howe responds to Bayern Munich bitterness
When those comments were put to Eddie Howe last month, he replied: “I always say with these types of things, it's irrelevant really, the market dictates him to transfer fees, not necessarily any one club.
“We're very pleased to have Nick with us. I think he's started very strongly. It must have been a difficult period for him because he's thrust straight into action, no training time with us really of any note, and I think he's done really, really well. So we're really pleased to have him with us, the transfer fee for me is absolutely irrelevant.”