Adam Wharton will certainly have plenty of suitors this summer as he continues to shine in Crystal Palace’s midfield.
A move to a Big Six Premier League club could await him at the end of the season, but Newcastle is also a recommended destination.
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Recent reports have linked Wharton, who joined Palace from Blackburn Rovers in 2024, with a possible move this summer.
The 21-year-old is an FA Cup winner with the Eagles and has made 57 Premier League appearances since arriving at Selhurst Park.
Palace chairman Steve Parish told The Pitch Prospect last year that Wharton was interested in playing for a Champions League club in the near future.
Manchester United have him on their midfielder list of three for the summer as they look to replace Casemiro, while Chelsea are known to be long-term admirers.
However, Jack Cunningham from The Pitch Prospect’s Inside Toon show believes Wharton could get the best out of Nick Woltemade at Newcastle.
The German striker scored four goals in his first five Premier League games following his £69million move from VfB Stuggart.
Woltemade has only scored three more goals in 15 games since that run, but Wharton could be the man to unlock his potential in attack.
“If you manage to build a team where you have legs around him… that’s probably a criticism, maybe he might not get around the field as well as, say, an Elliot Anderson,” Cunningham said.
“If you build a team where you have legs, and I think if you look at Newcastle’s midfield, that’s probably something we don’t lack: legs and energy in the midfield.”
“If you hug him and tell Wharton to just be the creative midfielder because when he plays for Palace he always plays forward passes, not really backwards passes.”
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“Usually it’s about a striker, about a frontman and I just think if you introduced a player like Adam Wharton into the Newcastle team you would suddenly see the best of Woltemade.”
“He’s someone who would actually get Woltemade’s foothold, rather than what we’re doing at the moment where we kind of leave him up there alone and don’t have enough people around him.”
“If you get the ball from Wharton to Woltemade, to someone who plays into his feet, the wingers will run away from him. I think you would start to see the best of Woltemade.”
“You need a player in midfield who is able to find those small, intricate forward passes because that’s probably the only thing…
“Bruno Guimaraes can do it 100 percent, but he also does so many other things in the team that it can’t always be his job. Someone like an Adam Wharton makes sense in my opinion.”
Cunningham also highlighted that Newcastle are finding it difficult to break through the opposition defense as they clearly lack a creative spark.
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He cited the example of the 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa on Sunday and how a player like Wharton could make the difference with his passing.
“That seems to be the only thing that Newcastle are missing, just the ability to break through a low block. Because we saw against Wolves, and even against Villa… Look, once they scored, it was actually quite comfortable for them.”
“I know [Emi] Martinez made two outstanding saves, once when the score was 0-0, then again [Lewis] Miley made good saves in the second half [Anthony] Gordon should have scored when the cross came [Kieran] Trippier.
“But other than that there was just endless crosses into the box and I didn’t feel like there was a lot of penetration, it wasn’t enough. I feel like Villa were the exact opposite.”
“They had that [Emi] Buendia, [Morgan] Rogers is humming around [Ollie] Watkins and it caused us all sorts of problems.
“When I look at the Premier League at the moment I feel like a lot of teams are doing pretty well just all sitting back, but not many teams have someone who can actually break through that barrier.”
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“I think if Newcastle can find that player profile and get that person then I think it takes us to another level because realistically we have everything else in the team.”
“It’s just that we’re lacking, and that’s why when teams take the lead, or even teams who are just content to give us the ball, they just let us have the ball because we basically just pass each other dead.”