Eddie Howe confident Nick Woltemade will keep getting better at Newcastle

Newcastle boss Eddie Howe is confident there is more to come from record signing Nick Woltemade after the striker opened his Champions League account in Brussels.

The 23-year-old, a £69million summer acquisition from Stuttgart, scored for the third time in four starts in the Magpies’ 4-0 victory at Union St-Gilloise.

The German provided a further riposte to those – principally Bayern Munich executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge – who have questioned his price tag.

Head coach Howe said: “His potential is high. It is an exciting start for him and he’s done really really well and more importantly he is willing and he wants to do the work and he wants to improve.

“It is difficult to put a percentage on what he is right now but there is more to come and there will be more to come physically and more to come tactically as we go through the journey together with him.

“We will be doing a lot of physical work with him to get him robust enough for the Premier League week in week out.”

It was Woltemade who took credit for the opening goal when he flicked Sandro Tonali’s shot on to defender Kevin Mac Allister, who unwittingly deflected it past his own keeper, but Union’s fortunes were to dwindle further as the evening wore on.

Fedde Leysen’s clumsy lunge at Anthony Elanga allowed Anthony Gordon to double his side’s lead from the spot two minutes before the break and he repeated the feat with 64 minutes gone after Leysen had been adjudged to have handled after a VAR review.

Woltemade appeared keen to take at least one of the spot-kicks and, although Gordon prevailed, Howe had no issue with that.

He said: “I love it. The best strikers I’ve worked with want to score. Even if there is a directive, they don’t care. They want to score. They want that responsibility. I’ve got no issue with that at all.”

Substitute Harvey Barnes put the icing on the cake with the fourth 10 minutes from time to cap a fine trip to Brussels after the Magpies’ opening defeat to Barcelona.

Howe said: “There are things we can improve but it was a big step in the right direction, an important stage as well in the Champions League because we have to start well.

“These competitions are so high and the demands are so big on us that if we’re slow starters, we could leave ourselves too much to do, so I certainly leave here in a lot healthier, positive frame of mind and I’m looking forward to the next game.”

Union boss Sebastien Pocognoli admitted his side had simply not been good enough to compete with a Newcastle outfit he said had paid them full respect.

Pocognoli said: “Maybe the opponent sometimes can be condescending, to look down on you. They didn’t, they paid us full respect.

“They played a big match with their skills and qualities. They played top level, all the Newcastle players played top level, so it shows that they had great respect for us.”

Meanwhile, Howe confirmed that full-back Tino Livramento will be sidelined for six to eight weeks by the knee injury he suffered in Sunday’s Premier League defeat by Arsenal.