You would think Alexander Isak was the new Michael Owen – Appalling | OneFootball

A lot of the things I am reading and hearing from Newcastle United fans about Alexander Isak, I have to keep reminding myself that this is not Michael Owen we are talking about.

I have to say, much of it I find pretty appalling.

Not what has been said many many times over about Michael Owen of course.

Instead, the fact that as Newcastle United fans, we are seemingly now supposed to view Alexander Isak as the biggest disgrace to ever wear black and white.

Just in case you have (luckily) totally blanked from your memory what Michael Owen was like with Newcastle United, a little reminder.

A new club record of £16.8m was paid to Real Madrid for Michael Owen in August 2005, he was given a four year contract on £110,000 per week.

There were 20,000 Newcastle supporters who turned up at St James’ Park for his unveiling, the first few months he played and scored a few goals playing alongside Alan Shearer. However, picking up an injury in December 2005, from that point on it became apparent for the next three and a half years that he had nothing but contempt for Newcastle United and the fans, everything was geared towards making sure he would be available for England, starting with the build up to the World Cup finals in summer 2006.

Michael Owen WAS an absolute disgrace when it came to Newcastle United. It was like he was doing NUFC and the fans a favour when he actually was willing to play.

The eventual ending summed it all up. With Newcastle United in a desperate failing battle to fight relegation in 2009, Michael Owen was only bothered about himself. With his four year contract set to end on 30 June 2009, Owen refused a contract extension in December 2008 and made clear he had no interest in extending that stay and instead was working on his next lucrative move, which would involve him as a free agent getting the best possible wages with no transfer fee to be paid. As Paul Ferris famously revealed, Michael Owen refusing to play at times in the relegation run-in as he was worried he might get injured and that would hamper his chance of maximising riches elsewhere. Newcastle United were relegated and Michael Owen walked away without another thought about the club that had paid him £110,000 per week for four years, despite unavailable for the majority of the matches during his NUFC stay.

Also worth a mention, when Newcastle United were relegated in 2009, the club captain was…Michael Owen.

Michael Owen still never tires of saying he never ever wanted to play for Newcastle United, that he was ‘forced’ to move to St James’ Park because of the money NUFC were prepared to pay in transfer fee and wages.

Then we have Alexander Isak

The way a lot of Newcastle United fans are going on, it is like these last three years never happened. Or that they happened in a very different way to how I remember them.

I could have sworn that many of these very same Newcastle United fans were amongst those most vocally saying that Eddie Howe and these NUFC players were the immortals, that whatever happened in the future, they were all legends for delivering that first domestic trophy in 70 years AND a second Champions League qualification in three years.

Indeed, I don’t think I know any Newcastle United fan who doesn’t believe that this season just gone, was anything other than the very best of their lifetime.

This hasn’t aged well, it.

These Newcastle United fans declaring rest of their lives gratitude…then only two months later the player who did more than any other to deliver the success of these past three seasons and especially this most recent stellar 2024/25 campaign, is now supposed to be the devil incarnate.

Alexander Isak has been a class act these past three seasons and especially the 2024/25 season.

In the Premier League era, Isak is the first to ever score 20 PL goals in consecutive seasons for Newcastle United.

For those who claim he has easily cried off from playing matches. Despite suffering a broken toe early in the 2024/25 season, Alexander Isak started 34 of the 38 Premier League matches with 29 direct goal involvements in the 34 PL games, scoring 23 and getting six assists. He also played and starred in the 2024/25 League Cup victories over Forest, Chelsea, Brentford, Arsenal (x2) and Liverpool, he only missed the AFC Wimbledon one.

There is a lot of rewriting of history going on by certain Newcastle United fans, with supposedly the mask slipping now and Alexander Isak revealed as the villain, rather than the footballing superhero he actually has been.

Wages

During the 2023/24 season, Amanda Staveley told Alexander Isak that he would be rewarded with far bigger wages in recognition of his contribution, a new contract to be put in place in summer 2024. When it got to summer 2024, new Sporting Director Paul Mitchell and his good mate (and NUFC CEO) Darren Eales didn’t honour that promise.

The message was…tough, you agreed a £120,000 per week contract in 2022 so why should we increase that now?

Look, as mere fans and 99,9999999% of us on normal wages, of course nobody should be crying on hearing somebody is on ‘only’ £6m a year (£120,000 a week).

However, you also have the real world where it is a free market, where we are all paid according to the skills you can bring to your respective careers. If you want to keep your best staff then you do your best to pay them their market value, their true worth. At least in the same ball park of what that employee could earn elsewhere. Otherwise you run the risk of making that employee feel like they are not really appreciated, that maybe even they should be thinking they might be appreciated a lot more if they worked for a different employer…

To put the wages into perspective.

Michael Owen was given a four year contract of £110,000 per week in 2005.

Nineteen years later in 2024, Alexander Isak was told by the Newcastle United senior management that he should be grateful for his £120,000 per week.

The best paid players in the present day of now summer 2025 are on £300,000 to £400,000. If Alexander Isak moved to another Premier League club this summer for a new PL record transfer fee, safe to assume I reckon that he would be paid at the very least £300,000 a week.

Now look, I know as much as the rest of you about what is going on now and what has gone on in the past.

However, I don’t think for one moment that Alexander Isak has money as his biggest priority. My belief is that he would have been happy to be paid somewhere in between his current £120,000 and the £300,000+ that players of similar ability and status are paid at certain other PL clubs. Maybe say Newcastle raising his wages to £200,000 a week or so last summer and we wouldn’t have ended up where we appear to be now.

All the talk in the more reliable Newcastle United media during the second half of the 2024/25 season, was that NUFC would move quick to negotiate a new much improved contract for Alexander Isak.

As we are still waiting for a new CEO and a new Sporting Director to be appointed, exactly who would Alexander Isak and his representatives have been able to talk to about a new contract? For all any of us know, maybe the question was put to the club by Isak’s representatives the last couple of months and they were told wait until the new CEO and Sporting Director are appointed…

If we do accept that Alexander Isak is now considering his position at the club, whether to stay at Newcastle United or move elsewhere. Here’s another fan/player conundrum to consider.

For all we know, Alexander Isak might have said to the Newcastle United hierarchy at the end of last season….”You know what, I am desperate to challenge for more trophies and I am happy to stay at St James’ Park, however, as we all know, we need to sign five or six players this summer to be able to compete in the 2025/26 season. So let’s wait and see who Newcastle United have signed by the end of July 2025 and I will then make my decision based on that…”

Safe to assume that pretty much all of these Newcastle United fans who are going so OTT with their abuse aimed at Alexander Isak, are also at the same time saying what a joke and disgrace it is that with two weeks to go until the new season, Anthony Elanga is the only signing and indeed, this summer Newcastle have lost another two first team squad players in Wilson and Longstaff.

Again, none of us should be crying in sympathy for anybody earning millions every year, however, we all know how gutted we feel as fans about the lack of signings, so how do you think our elite NUFC players are feeling about that???

The club is a shambles in many ways at the minute, what about the spectacular new stadium and state of the art training ground both fans and players had been led to expect would happen?

Alexander Isak is an elite player and in seven weeks time will turn 26, would you really blame him if he is thinking what the hell is going on at Newcastle United?

Or rather, what isn’t going on at Newcastle United.

As I said earlier, like the rest of you I don’t have a clue what is happening with Alexander Isak. Nor do I have a clue about what is happening (if anything…) inside the club at the minute.

I just find it all depressing though, that so many Newcastle United fans want to suddenly now believe every single negative thing that the media claim about Alexander Isak. All these Newcastle United fans who always say how you can never trust anything the media say these days, suddenly believing everything bad they come out with on Isak. Faking injury, going on strike, demanding a move, refusing to ever play for Newcastle again…whatever.

Goodwill in the bank

I understand the frustration of Newcastle United fans currently, I understand the anger to a large degree.

However, it feels like all of the frustrations and anger bottled up this summer due to the lack of signings, no new stadium announcement, no new training ground, no new CEO, no new Sporting Director, ticket prices going up to a significant degree (cheapest ticket for Liverpool match has gone up from £50 last season to £58 this season), zero communication from the owners and senior management (if we have any currently) at the club.

It feels to me like all of this anger and frustration is now being vented at Alexander Isak. When far more so, it is the Newcastle United owners and their senior management, with the exception of Eddie Howe of course on the football side, who do have so many questions to answer.

With Alexander Isak, I reserve judgement until I see how this all turns out, what we end up learning about what is and isn’t going on. Indeed, whether or not Alexander Isak even leaves or not. Eddie Howe and the other senior players all continue to speak very supportively of Alexander Isak and I want to see what happens and in the end, what Isak himself has to say.

Harry Kane wanted to leave Spurs in summer 2020, summer 2021 and summer 2022, but he ended up staying and continuing to be their star player AND star goalscorer before eventually leaving in summer 2023 when he was 30 and had one year left on his contract.

I do believe that Alexander Isak has indicated that he would consider now leaving Newcastle United which as fans we are understandably not happy about.

I also believe that Alexander Isak isn’t blameless, that he could have handled this current situation better and that the timing of it only adds to the mess at the club.

However, Alexander Isak had huge goodwill in the bank with me previously and whilst of course that enormous goodwill has been reduced to a degree and I would be gutted if he did leave, that doesn’t change the fact of what he has given us the past three years. It also feels to me like it is Isak’s agents who are stirring a lot of the negativity up with how they have acted, provocatively using the media to do so.

Alexander Isak hasn’t done what Trent Alexander-Arnold and Kylian Mbappe (and Michael Owen…) did, he hasn’t cynically ran his contract all the way down so that Newcastle United would receive nothing for him.

Instead, Isak is a football player employed by Newcastle United, who they paid £63m for in 2022, who has then given three years of great service, including delivering a trophy and the best ever season in living memory (Plus – Now if he does leave it will be only if a club pays around £150m which would be some £35m more than the current Premier League record if it is an English club buying him).

If you really think none of that counts for anything now, then fair enough.