Chelsea on red alert as elite Premier League striker hands in transfer request – but it may be too late | OneFootball

Today’s transfer news bombshell comes from the North East of England, where in demand Newcastle striker Alexander Isak has told the club that he wants to explore other options.

Isak times his move badly with top clubs already commited

Ben Jacobs’ Tweet about Alexander Isak pushing for a move away.

It’s slightly odd timing from the Swede – Liverpool, Arsenal, Man U and Chelsea have all spent big on strikers already this summer. If he’d done this in May, he might have had all of them added to the list of teams chasing him.

Instead he appears to have waited until options were pretty limited before making his move – unless his agent has some inside information about a team ready to make a decisive move. The Premier League big guns have tooled up already, there are few if any European teams with the money to make Newcastle sell, and it’s hard to see Isak packing it in and heading to Saudi Arabia just as his career is reaching its peak.

This announcement could destroy his relationship with his adoring fans, and for what?

Announcement comes too late for Chelsea interest

Now we could never rule anything out when it comes to potential Chelsea interest in Isak – these owners and sporting directors have caught us all out a few times with how opportunistic they’re willing to be, and they certainly don’t let conventional wisdom hold them back.

But at this stage in the window, with 3 strikers on the books and a large number of sales still needing to be make, we can’t see them tearing up all their plans for a signing that’s likely to be €100m. If Isak doesn’t find a move this summer, we expect to see Chelsea linked continually in windows to come, but right now it feels a financial bridge too far.