CELTIC PARK — Eddie Howe sent Alexander Isak home from the club’s Glasgow base before their friendly against Celtic, partly to protect the striker from the scrutiny and noise surrounding his future.
In a bracingly honest post-match press conference that followed a 4-0 defeat at Celtic Park, Howe spoke of a determination “from the top of the club” to keep hold of Isak, hailed him as irreplaceable and said he was confident he would start the season with Newcastle.
But he stopped short of offering a cast-iron guarantee that Isak would remain at St James’ Park and the decision not to make Isak stay in Scotland raised eyebrows – even if the Sweden striker was never in the running to play. Fellow absentee Joelinton, by contrast, was with the squad at Celtic.
This was the first time that Howe has spoken in what is proving a difficult summer at St James’ Park.
While the focus was naturally on Isak, he was just as enlightening about the club’s difficulties in doing incoming business, admitting it has been “frustrating” and they had missed out on players because they weren’t “desperate to come” to Newcastle.
While he said he was hopeful of further incomings to follow Anthony Elanga’s £55m move Howe did not offer any guarantees. He admitted Newcastle “were not the biggest payers”, with some of their targets having more lucrative offers elsewhere.
The Isak situation, though, is dominating affairs on Tyneside. Liverpool communicated their interest last week and while there have been no formal offers for the striker – who was also linked with Al-Hilal on Friday night – it feels as though his future remains uncertain.
Asked if he could deliver guarantees on Isak, he said: “I think it’s difficult for me to ever give 100 per cent clarity on any player. I’d never do that because it’s football and you never know what could happen.
“All I can say is that Alex is happy at Newcastle. He loves the players that he plays with, the staff, the team. I’ve never had any issue with him, other than really enjoying seeing his talent and seeing him express himself.
“Certainly, I’m confident that he’s going to be here at the start of the season.”
The desire to keep him is a feeling shared from boardroom to dugout, Howe says: “There is no one who feels any differently.
“From board to staff to players. We value his qualities, as a person, so it’s very strong.”
Pardon the pun but the situation is far from black and white. Newcastle are dealing with a delicate situation and Howe has held conversations with Isak surrounding his future. He also emphasised that the player has “trained really, really well”.
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Howe clarified that nothing should be read into Isak not being with the squad – there are no active negotiations with any club – and explained that his absence was more to do with protecting him from the scrutiny that would have followed a week of intense speculation.
“For any player that is not an easy thing to deal with,” he said.
“It’s not an easy thing to understand when you’re fielding, no doubt from his perspective, phone calls, text messages, players and people asking him… because the media now is so strong and the media message goes far and wide and that scrutiny in part, that’s 10 per cent of the reason why he wasn’t here today because I just want him to focus on himself and his training ready for next week.”
If Isak is the elephant in the room for Newcastle, just as pressing is the fact that the club have seen a string of their priority targets go elsewhere.
Dean Huijsen, Liam Delap, Joao Pedro and Hugo Ekitike have all either gone or are about to go to direct Champions League rivals.
And they are set to walk away from a move for James Trafford after Burnley refused to budge on their £40m asking price.
As The i Paper reported at the start of June, Manchester City retain an interest in him if Ederson leaves – and they have the benefit of a sell-on clause which gives them leverage in negotiations.
Yoane Wissa was touted as an alternative striker option but Brentford will not do Newcastle any favours given Bryan Mbeumo is on the brink of joining Manchester United.
They can expect to pay a Premier League premium of £10-15m over his market value to do that deal.
Newcastle jet out to Singapore on Friday – Howe said Isak would be there and play – and Howe said it wasn’t certain further signings would be brokered by then.
“I wish I could give you clarity, I wish I could give you some kind of guarantee that’s going to happen but I can’t,” he said.
“My wish was for us to do our business early and we certainly tried but it wasn’t to be. We’ve had a frustrating time in terms of losing targets to other clubs. I’ve been very open about that, it’s happened on a couple of occasions but you just have to accept it. For a transfer to really work, in my opinion, the player has to be desperate to come to your club and if you don’t get that the transfer doesn’t work.
“We’re seeking players who are good enough and are desperate to come and will make a difference. They’re in short supply for us but we’re confident that we can get some more players in to strengthen the depth of the squad. We certainly need to.”
All of this is playing out against the backdrop of Newcastle taking on another summer transfer window with uncertainty at the top. No director of football appointment is expected before the end of August while CEO Darren Eales continues to work his notice.
Howe has, therefore, taken the lead on deals after the departure of Paul Mitchell took him by surprise.
“My phone exploded,” he said.
“I was just enjoying my second day of my holiday and that quickly went sour. It was the second day, I didn’t know, it was a complete surprise to me and a big disappointment because we had stability, we were planning (for) the summer ahead and then you know, that’s a big upheaval internally that we’ve been through before with Dan Ashworth leaving.
“So I’ve experienced this before and I know sort of the cost that that departure comes with. So it wasn’t a good first couple of days on holiday for me.”
Things can change quickly, of course, but at the moment it feels as if momentum is against Newcastle in a pivotal summer.
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