The Alexander Isak myth – Nick Woltemade moves ahead of him | OneFootball

Whenever Newcastle United have failed to win a match this season, one name repeatedly features highly in the media reports that follow.

Someone who isn’t even a Newcastle United player.

Yes, Alexander Isak.

The narrative never changes.

If only Alexander Isak was still in a black and white shirt then Newcastle United would have won, the Sweden international would have scored however many goals.

Down on Merseyside they are still wondering what they have paid a Premier League record fee for. Isak scoring a goal in the League Cup against lower league Southampton but not exactly hitting the ground running.

No doubt the reaction by many out there would be to point out the lack of matches and group training for the months before his deadline day move, which of course has ended up backfiring on him.

At the same time though, Alexander Isak struggling for goals, fitness and form early in the season, isn’t a new thing.

In the 2021/22 season, his final full La Liga season before he joined Newcastle United, Isak scored no goals in the opening nine league matches.

Joining Newcastle his first start in the 2022/23 season saw him on fire on his debut, scoring at Anfield. However, other than scoring a penalty against Bournemouth at St James’ Park, his next (third) Newcastle goal didn’t come until 15 January 2023 at home to Fulham.

The next (2023/24) season, Alexander Isak got on the scoresheet in the opening game of the season, a 5-1 win over Villa. However, it was six games and more than six weeks later when at the end of September he got his next goal, a totally demoralised Sheffield United trailing 7-0 and Isak getting a late eighth goal for NUFC.

What about the 2024/25 season?

The first ten games of the season saw Alexander Isak score once, an open goal in the 2-1 home win over Tottenham when Murphy raced from the halfway line and set Isak up for a tap-in. Isak’s second goal of last season didn’t come until the 27 October 2024 in the 2-1 away defeat at Chelsea. I remember in a number of games, the 1-0 defeat at home to Brighton a real stand out, where Newcastle fans were moaning and groaning as Alexander Isak was getting great scoring opportunities but failing to put them away, his general play also called into question in those early months of last season.

This isn’t to say that Alexander Isak is a poor striker and won’t score goals at Liverpool. The quality of players they have got and the number of chances they create, it is all but inevitable he will at least do ok. Although Salah will be taking the penalties…

My point is, the main one anyway, is that if Newcastle United still had Alexander Isak, there is absolutely no guarantee that loads more goals would have been scored, draws turned into wins, defeats into draws or wins.

Quite the opposite in fact, if you judge Alexander Isak on what has happened at least the most recent four seasons before this one. How few goals he has scored early in these campaigns. In his final one at Real Sociedad of course, he only scored six La Liga goals all season.

A bit like Newcastle United generally under Eddie Howe, Alexander Isak and the team tended to go through certain periods of struggling to score a lot of goals, especially in a fair few of the matches early on, then the team would get into a proper rhythm and invariably go on runs of wins and the team scoring plenty of goals, including Isak regularly amongst the goalscorers.

Yoane Wissa has been so unlucky to be get injured before he could play for Newcastle United.

However, Nick Woltemade has arrived on the pitch after three Premier League matches had already been played and in the three Premier League matches that have followed, he has scored in two of the three and with pretty much the only two chances that have came his way. When it comes to early season goalscoring form for Newcastle United, Woltemade already moving ahead of Isak for sure.

Under Eddie Howe, Newcastle United have tended to not really hit the ground running at the start of a season in any sustained way and we seem to have been blighted at times by a combination of tough opening schedules of matches and luck and fine margins deserting us.

There are of course any number of factors that haven’t helped the preparations for this current season and the opening matches, plus an incredibly tough opening schedule and injuries, suspensions, decisions by match officials and those fine margins and luck going against us.

However, I think the motor is warming up, missing players to return (and obviously hoping Tino Livramento proves to be not badly injured) and the match schedule bringing more winnable matches generally.

Once we have both Wissa and Woltemade fit and available that will help massively increase the attacking threat and I am more than confident that this pair will score more goals this season than the 28 goals that Alexander Isak and Callum Wilson managed between them last season (in all competitions).