Nick Woltemade has impressed his Premier League opponents with more than just his goals. Now Tyler Adams reports on how his trash talk attack fell flat.
Nick Woltemade is not the tallest player in the Premier League, nor even the tallest player on his team: Newcastle United center back Dan Burn currently tops the league rankings at 2.01 meters, with 19-year-old Brentford goalkeeper Julian Eyestone also ahead of Woltemade at exactly two meters. The former Stuttgart player is in third place – and thus far, far ahead of Tyler Adams, with whom he has nevertheless already had some amazing duels.
As the former Leipzig player, now playing for AFC Bournemouth, reported, he was assigned to Woltemade in set pieces during the league home game against Newcastle on September 21—even though he himself is only 1.75 meters tall, 23 centimeters shorter than his opponent. “I always cover the biggest players,” Adams laughed on the US soccer portal Men in Blazers. “I play in a small team.”
And so Adams helps himself with a few other means. When asked if that meant wrestling, pulling jerseys and being sneaky, the 26-year-old US international replied: “That’s exactly what I think about in a situation like that. I give it my best shot.” And of course, a little trash talk is a must – but it just didn’t work with Woltemade.
“Because he was so nice, it actually made me a little uncomfortable.”
“I’m used to insulting someone and then they insult me back, but that wasn’t the case here,” explained Adams, who, by his own admission, hasn’t met many Germans who engage in a lot of trash talk. Woltemade was “a very nice guy,” he said. “He really was. And because he was so nice, it actually made me a little uncomfortable.”
In the end, Adams was successful anyway. Woltemade, who had scored once in each of his three other Premier League appearances so far, remained goalless, and the game ended 0-0. And in the table, Newcastle’s €85 million man is also clearly behind Adams’ team: after seven match days, Bournemouth is fourth and, alongside Crystal Palace (6th) and promoted Sunderland (9th), the big surprise of this season. The Magpies went into the international break in eleventh place.
