Newcastle United owners with questions to answer on Alexander Isak | OneFootball

There are questions to be answered by the Newcastle United owners when it comes to Alexander Isak.

Whether we will ever get those answers is another matter.

However, I think it is worth looking back at what actually did happen when it comes to the Alexander Isak situation and how the Newcastle United owners handled it. Or is that…mishandled it?

It was a situation that dominated the summer transfer window, especially where Newcastle United fans were concerned.

You can only imagine how Eddie Howe felt, stuck in the middle of it.

Whilst at the same time trying to prepare his Newcastle United squad for a massively challenging season on four fronts, including Champions League.

My belief is that the Newcastle United owners seriously let Eddie Howe down, undermining him as he tried to do a very difficult job, which became near impossible due to the Alexander Isak situation.

This was when it all really kicked off…

The Athletic report – 15 July 2025:

The Merseyside club say no formal offer has been submitted as they are well aware Newcastle’s stance has always been that Isak is not for sale.

However, they have communicated their interest to do a deal in the region of £120million.

Liverpool’s admiration for the 25-year-old is long-standing, while Eintracht Frankfurt forward Hugo Ekitike has also been among those on their radar. There has been no official contact from Liverpool to Eintracht. Newcastle are working to recruit Ekitike but have yet to reach an agreement with Eintracht or the 23-year-old France youth international.’

The reaction of myself and many other Newcastle fans was to doubt there was substance in this. I chose not to believe that Liverpool had been in touch with the Newcastle United owners, the club hierarchy.

I think that the events that then followed, now make me believe that the above did happen.

That by mid-July, Liverpool had been in touch with the Newcastle United owners saying they wanted to buy Alexander Isak and would be prepared to break the Premier League transfer record, paying £120m+ for Isak.

Even if I still didn’t believe Liverpool got in touch with Newcastle then, it was still a situation that needed sorting urgently for Eddie Howe and NUFC. Only days after that breaking story from The Athletic, we had the first (public) friendly of pre-season at Celtic, Alexander Isak and the rest of the Newcastle United squad returning from their pre-season training camp in Austria and flying into Glasgow. Only for Alexander Isak to leave the squad before that friendly and head home to Tyneside, with Eddie Howe referring to the striker being not fit enough to play and that it would be unfair on Isak with all the media transfer speculation for him to be sitting in the crowd.

I think that Eddie Howe was simply doing his best to hold everything together at that point. That Liverpool had for sure told Newcastle United that they wanted to buy Alexander Isak and the striker knew this and very much wanted it to happen. Whether that weekend was the start of the Alexander Isak strike action, well, I think more than likely.

I think both Alexander Isak and Liverpool acted disgracefully this summer, plus Isak’s agent of course.

However, that doesn’t let the Newcastle United owners off the hook. By that, I mean doing what they needed to do to ensure Eddie Howe could approach the new season in the best possible position.

At that point in mid-July, the Newcastle United owners had to be decisive and ensure that the Alexander Isak situation wouldn’t negatively impact the club.

Two choices

Bear in mind, back then in mid-July when Liverpool made contact (my guess is that contact/communication had already been made long before that, even if only via agents), there were still seven weeks of the transfer window open and almost five weeks still to go until the season kicked off.

For me, the Newcastle United owners had two choices they could make in mid-July.

Choice one

Inform Liverpool that Alexander Isak would not be sold this summer under any circumstances. With the Newcastle United owners then sticking to that.

Choice two

Inform Liverpool that Alexander Isak could be bought for £XXXmillion but that this had to be sorted within the week, a binding offer to be made within that timeframe. Liverpool to be informed that unless this happened, Isak would not be sold this summer and the Newcastle United owners then sticking to that, no matter what.

In the end the Newcastle United owners did neither of these things.

They instead allowed this Alexander Isak situation to get ever more toxic with each passing day, it massively impacted the preparations for the new season, the Newcastle United owners DID then cave in at the last minute and sell Alexander Isak for £125m-£130m on deadline day.

As I say, they should have either sold Isak in mid-July, or else stuck to their guns and not caved in at the last minute.

Reality is that Alexander Isak would then have returned to training and played for Newcastle United this season. This kind of situation has happened at many other clubs, players doing everything they can to leave in a transfer window BUT not allowed to AND then playing for another half season, full season, even many seasons. Not least at Liverpool, where the likes of Coutinho, Suarez and others weren’t sold, then continued to play for Liverpool.

As I said earlier, none of this excuses Liverpool, Alexander Isak, his agent.

However, it doesn’t excuse the Newcastle United owners either, when it comes to how they let down Eddie Howe, the Newcastle fans, and indeed, the other NUFC players.