Bullied? Just strong on valuations and how a player leaves the football club – Eddie Howe | OneFootball

Eddie Howe speaking ahead of Monday night’s match.

Newcastle United playing Liverpool at St James’ Park.

An 8pm kick-off on this Bank Holiday Monday.

A tough start to the season for Eddie Howe, challenges both on and off the pitch.

Away to Villa then home to Liverpool to kick things off, couldn’t have been a tougher couple of opening fixtures.

Whilst of course off it, a similarly tough transfer market challenge, especially with the Alexander Isak sideshow.

Ahead of this Liverpool match, Eddie Howe asked if the club are showing this summer that they won’t be bullied off it, with a certain transfer saga in mind…?

“I don’t necessarily think that the club are trying to make that stance.

“I think that they are just reacting to this situation.

“They are being strong on the valuations of players and on how a player leaves the football club.

“All of these things are important.

“They are important in this situation, also the future.”

Eddie Howe asked if Newcastle United could potentially sell Alexander Isak without a credible replacement having signed:

“We certainly can’t go through the season with no recognised striker at the football club  and that’s no disrespect to Will Osula. I think he’s doing really well and he’s progressing really well, but he’s got limited experience in the Premier League, although I’m really happy with his career progression.

“But Alexander Isak at the moment would be the only striker we have, with Premier League history of goals and starts, so we can’t leave ourselves in that position.”

Eddie Howe asked about Anthony Gordon playing through the middle:

“He is an attacker and he is a very good attacking player.

“The beauty of Anthony when we signed him, was that he can play right, left and potentially down the middle, something that he has done before.

“He has done it for England (Under 21s) and so it is not something totally new to him.

“I don’t think anyone can fill Alex’s boots and Anthony will know that himself.

“He is not trying to be Alex, he’s got to be himself.

“I think if he had scored against Aston Villa, you would think; ‘That is the perfect number nine performance.’.

“I think he had seven shots in the (Villa) game, he looked a threat, he got a man sent off.