Newcastle United will not allow Alexander Isak to leave unless they secure two new strikers this summer.
For all the talk around the Sweden international, who is currently training on his own at former club Real Sociedad, in the end it is likely to be cold, hard transfer market dynamics that dictate the next steps on Tyneside.
A realistic prospect? No-one at Newcastle is quite sure what happens next but the silence from the club about Isak’s decision to train with his own private conditioning staff in San Sebastian tells its own story.
While some fans have taken Isak’s return to Spain as a huge sleight – with some justification, it must be added – the club are keeping a clear path open for Isak to be reintegrated and are not about to criticise their player.
Sources suggest they knew of Isak’s whereabouts but further details are scant.
It is unlikely to have been encouraged by Newcastle, put it that way, but there has been no talk of him going AWOL and Eddie Howe will not castigate him for it ahead of the game against Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend.
A political tightrope is being walked that makes for difficult viewing for fans already disenchanted with Newcastle’s inability to capitalise on the momentum of last season but their approach makes a lot of sense.
Firstly because the club’s not-for-sale message is a genuine one, but also because if relations break down entirely, it could have a ruinous impact on their season.
As one Premier League recruitment source summed it up on Thursday: “This sort of thing happens all the time.
“It is more pronounced here because it is playing out in public but nothing is irreparable and no footballer will refuse to play for his club after 1 September.
“I think Newcastle have that in their mind here.”
Newcastle remain interested in Brentford striker Yoane Wissa but, as revealed by The i Paper on Monday, the Bees are adamant that he won’t leave this summer unless a replacement can be secured.
Wissa is keen on Newcastle and wants to play Champions League football but the irony has not been lost on both clubs that they find themselves in an identical position in the final weeks of a difficult transfer window.
Isak is in such rarefied air that there is a vanishingly small pool of potential replacements.
Newcastle have already missed out on Hugo Ekitike, who signed for Liverpool for £69m from Eintracht Frankfurt, and while they want RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko, there is pessimism internally about that move, with Manchester United rivalling them for the forward.
There are also some reservations about the price tag, which is similar to Ekitike despite the belief that he needs more work, and whether he would need time to adjust to the demands of a Premier League season.
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There are other options – Chelsea’s Nicolas Jackson and Paris Saint-Germain’s Randal Kolo Muani are two that have been floated, while they may reverse their position of being lukewarm on Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins – but all feel a bit too reactive for a club that had always intended to player trade from a position of strength.
Quite what the big plan is at Newcastle no-one is saying at the moment.
Former Real Madrid head of global partnerships David Hopkinson is expected to be appointed as chief executive before the season starts and he has a daunting in-tray that should begin with a thorough review of what has gone wrong this summer.
Does all of this mean Isak will stay at Newcastle? The situation remains on a knife edge.
If Liverpool make a bid close to the £150m the club want, that is a potential game-changer.
But those at Anfield are playing a waiting game of their own – keen to jump on the opportunity of signing another elite talent while aware that the situation is far from straightforward.
At least for the moment, the majority of the manoeuvering appears to be coming from Isak himself.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/Q50MRah
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