Newcastle United have been dealt their perennial early-season injury issues, but there’s little question that Eddie Howe’s side are in a good position to meet their targets this year; perhaps they will even exceed them.

The backline has stood strong and firm for most of Howe’s tenure, but he has reinforced the St. James’ Park defences this summer and appears to have added layers to the existing fold too. Nick Pope has five clean sheets from seven Premier League matches, and as the goalkeeper ranks joint-fifth for saves made (19), all can be observed to be pulling their weight.

However, with Alexander Isak sold to Liverpool for a record-breaking fee, the Magpies entered the campaign freighted with fresh worries about the quality in attack. Yoane Wissa still hasn’t made his debut for the club as he recovers from a knee injury, and that has been fuel for the fire.

But the intensity of the blaze has been allayed through the fast start to life in England of Nick Woltemade.

Newcastle's big-money buy

If Newcastle are fools for spending the big bucks on Woltemade in August, what does that make those who opted against landing such a unique and dangerous centre-forward?

Seven games in, the former Stuttgart man has notched four goals in black and white, and he’s earning the respect and focus of more than just Tyneside’s devoted fans.

Different to Isak, Woltemade still boasts far more than a sharp shot, and his early foray into the English game has told of an exciting future for both player and club, the potential to join Isak and maybe even the legendary Alan Shearer in the highest regard of those strikers who were not one cut but several above the rest.

Four goals in seven hardly make a young and aspiring forward the next Shearer, but already the 23-year-old has proved himself a reliable goalscorer in the Premier League, with the sharpness of mind to rival Isak for the crown as Newcastle’s best modern nine.

However, Shearer’s role and reputation in Newcastle surpassed the success he had as a goalscorer. A true talismanic force, he led the club for many years and understood inherently what it means to be a Geordie.

And Newcastle may have their next version. No, it’s not boyhood fan Dan Burn (although he is of course a legend in his own right).

No, the man in question here arrived from overseas, but he’s an adopted son of this city and one of the key pillars of the Howe era.

Howe's own version of Shearer

It all started with Howe. And then Howe got to work during the January 2022 transfer window and signed a wealth of talented players to climb away from relegation danger and up and up the Premier League ladder.

And among the first through the door was Bruno Guimaraes, who joined from Lyon for a £41m fee toward the end of the window. He was 24 at the time, and it was considered a coup.

Into his fifth campaign on Tyneside, the Brazil international has been both a leader and a marvel in the middle of the park, with his combative defending and fierce pressing and elegant passing leading all the big clubs to come sniffing. He has remained loyal.

But the £100m prices that have been mooted here and there underline his skill and the belief from elsewhere that Newcastle have a truly special player in their mix.

Hailed as a “machine” of a midfielder by blogger Thomas Hammond, the 27-year-old has maintained impressive fitness levels and has been deployed more often than any other Newcastle player across Howe’s tenure.

Fabian Schar

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Bruno Guimaraes

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Dan Burn

5

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Jacob Murphy

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Joelinton

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He’d bleed for the badge, and has been rewarded for his tenacity and commitment with two Champions League campaigns in three terms, winning the Carabao Cup last year besides.

The £160k-per-week talent is unquestionably one of the best in the business, and he is also the captain of the United fold, with Howe speaking in the past of his awe for Newcastle’s “difference-maker”.

Had he never arrived, Newcastle might never have hit the heights reached over the past few years. Perhaps the drive and verve they played with for much of 2024/25 would never have led them to triumph in the Carabao Cup.

But even in defeat, Guimaraes speaks with a passion that cannot be forged, cannot be imitated. The loss to Liverpool in August would be a case in point, having taken a subtle dig at Isak as he held his head high even after Rio Ngumoha sank hearts across St. James’ Park with a cruel last-minute winner.

There stood a leader, a talisman Shearer was proud of watching. Isak might have had the 55-year-old’s respect for his ability to find the back of the net, but Guimaraes is by far a better embodiment of what it takes to wear the Newcastle badge.

Shearer is the all-time record scorer in the Premier League with 260 goals. Even for a phenomenon like Manchester City’s Erling Haaland (who has 94 goals), that will take some beating.

The retired striker said he lived out his “dream” at Newcastle, even though Manchester United came calling when he was at Blackburn Rovers, even though he unlaced his boots and hung them up without any silverware to display across ten campaigns on Tyneside.

Guimaraes bears a trophy in his own cabinet, but he too has had offers from more established superpowers, and he remains when some of his high-level teammates have ventured off for greener pastures.

He wears the armband, and he deserves it. Guimaraes is the leader of this remarkable Howe project, and he is closer to Shearer than Isak ever was.