It costs nothing to be polite. Eberechi Eze glides through football’s over-heated madhouse with the same mannerly, understated elegance he displays on the pitch. Like Alexander Isak, Eze is at the centre of a hot transfer story that has negative consequences for the selling team. Unlike Isak, he can read a room
However Isak’s ruinous position at Newcastle United is resolved, the Swede has for all time lost the affection of the Toon Army. Whilst the short-termism that afflicts the football mentality and the embrace of his next team will protect him in the near term, he might find the damage done at St James’ Park rises like damp to claim him in his dotage.
Isak and Eze are walking the same tripwire that is the power relation between club and player. But ultimately it matters how you treat people, even in football.
Sir Bobby Charlton was revered around the world not only for the purity of his strike but the way he conducted himself on and off the pitch, just one booking and not a hint of controversy. The great Pele followed the same path, representing something more than the game he played. There is no “Hand of God” staining either of their careers.
Isak, you fancy, has something of the Diego Maradona about him, brilliant but touched by the night. Eze gives off an altogether different vibe, his conduct informed by a well-rounded ethical code.
Eze is deeply bound to his faith, which gives him a way of seeing the world that takes account of others. So when Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur made eyes at him, it had no impact on his commitment to Crystal Palace. He would be an Eagle until the moment Palace said yes to one or the other.
Did Eze want to advance his career at a bigger club any less? Of course not. Did his quiet acceptance of his contractual position hamper the prospects of a move? Of course not. Ultimately every footballer has a price, it is for the clubs to agree it and the player to accept the outcome, or the whole thing falls apart.
There is no indication that Isak has the same attachment as Eze to any behavioural code other than that which serves him best. So, in his desperation to further his career at Liverpool, Isak has shown only contempt for the club that brought him to the Premier League and to which he is contractually obligated.
He has taken no account of the interests of those alongside whom he has stood for the past three years, teammates, manager, supporters, a stance that hardly promotes him to the buying club and one that has obliterated relationships at Newcastle.
It is perhaps ironic that another with a dubious perspective, Yoane Wissa, is busy torching his relationship with Brentford to facilitate a move to St James’s Park as part of the Isak solution. One ungrateful egg for another, perhaps. That Wissa should cancel Brentford on his Instagram account is not, however, on Newcastle.
New Brentford manager Keith Andrews has taken Wissa’s stance personally. Speaking to TalkSport, Andrews said: “I have got a good relationship with Wiss. I worked really hard with him last year to try to find goals. Seven of his 19 goals last year came from set-pieces. He owes me really, so he shouldn’t be going anywhere, to be blunt!”
Wissa would argue he made good on that support with his performances. And clearly he feels that Brentford are moving the goalposts with their shifting valuation of him, which has increased by a third from £40m to £60m in response to the transfer dynamic to which the Isak affair is contributing.
Rightly or wrongly football is governed by the same market forces that drive commercial trade in any industry. Wissa was happy to play by those rules when he joined the Bees from French club Lorient four years ago and developed into a fan favourite. Not now.
Eze, on the other hand, was cheered at Stamford Bridge for the Palace hero he is, and will be applauded on his return to the Colosseum for the loyal Eagle he was, no matter the colour of his shirt. Then again, he is a grown up.
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