He’s been a Newcastle United player for just over a month, and has only made a handful of appearances, but Nick Woltemade may already be the player many fans have been most impressed by so far this season.

With two goals in three Premier League starts, Woltemade was handed the unenviable task of replacing Alexander Isak as our primary goalscorer, but the young German is already showing signs that he’s more than up for the task.

But football is a team sport, and as good as Woltemade has been, you can’t help but watch the lads’ performances this season and feel a lot more could be done for the 23-year-old in terms of service and creating chances for him to capitalise on.

That’s the message from Eddie Howe to his players, as we prepare for some big games in October across the Premier League, Champions League and Carabao Cup.

Howe sends message to his squad over service issues

Speaking after Sunday’s game against Arsenal, Howe admitted that although we scored against one of the more formidable defences in the Premier League, our attacking presence still left a lot to be desired.

Our opener came from a well worked corner routine before Sandro Tonali’s looping cross was met by a leaping header from Woltemade. Towering over Gabriel, the German has shown that he really is as good a target man as many believed he would be prior to signing.

But besides that one cross, chances came few and far in between for the former Stuttgart striker, as even our most creative players like Tonali, Gordon and Murphy failed to gift Woltemade the service he needs.

“I thought his goal was a brilliant example of what he (Woltemade) can be. But I don’t think, as a team, we particularly fed him well. I don’t think there was a huge number of crosses going into the box. What he did feed off, I thought he did well.”

“Every game is different, but I’m looking at that [the Arsenal game] and thinking that if I’m Nick, I want more. Not necessarily from the team, because he plays an important role in that himself, but ‘I want more goalmouth action, I’m going to thrive and live off that’.”

“Whatever bits he had today, he converted, so I think that’s something for me to reflect on. But I think whenever you play Arsenal, especially the way that they played today, it’s not going to be a game where you’re going to get an abundance of chances.”

Thankfully, we won’t have to play defences of Arsenal’s calibre much more for the rest of this season. But if anything, our performance on Sunday will have given a lot of teams a workable blueprint to beat us: isolate Woltemade and minimise his chances, and we will struggle to score?

Goals needed ahead of 6 huge October games

At the time of writing, ourselves, Wolves and Aston Villa are the three teams with the fewest goals scored in this season’s Premier League, with four each.

And with Champions League games against the unbeaten Union Saint-Gilloise and Jose Mourinho’s Benfica, as well as must-win Premier League games against the likes of Nottingham Forest and Fulham, and Howe will need to figure out fast how else we can score if we’re struggling to create chances for Woltemade.

The most likely option is a switch in the starters: Lewis Hall and Kieran Trippier are amongst the most versatile and creative players at Howe’s disposal, and Tino Livramento’s recent injury invites at least one of them to start the next game in Belgium.

One player who was notably absent from Sunday’s starting XI was Anthony Elanga. Although he has yet to score or assist in a competitive game since signing earlier in the summer, his excellent display against Barcelona showed that with the right player on the end of his passes, like Woltemade rather than Gordon, and goals should come thick and fast.