‘Not in my hands’: diplomatic Howe has lost control of Isak’s Newcastle future

As a player at Bournemouth and Portsmouth Eddie Howe could invariably be found reading the foreign news pages of the broadsheets while travelling to matches on the team bus.

More than two decades on, the Newcastle manager’s ability to construct carefully worded sentences loaded with calibrated between-the-lines subtext make it easy to imagine him as some sort of international envoy.

This skill set dictates that few Premier League counterparts can be better equipped to confront a problem such as Alexander Isak. Yet, behind a resolutely brave face, even Newcastle’s manager acknowledges, albeit tacitly, that he has lost control of the situation.

The Sweden striker is so keen to force through a move to Liverpool that he has, in effect, gone on strike. After resisting overtures to be reintegrated with the squad, Isak continues to train alone and, it is understood, will shortly be fined the maximum permissible two weeks’ wages for making himself unavailable for Saturday’s season opener at Aston Villa.

“I’ve said many times I want Alex to train and play,” Howe said on Friday. “I’ve had those conversations with him.” Pressed on whether Isak could rejoin the squad before the end of this month, he shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Alex will control that.”

So how did it come to this? Isak, disgruntled at not receiving the pay rise he believed he had been promised during the summer of 2024, left plenty of clues about his mindset last season. In an BBC interview with Alan Shearer last winter and then before the Carabao Cup final the 25-year-old was noncommittal, to say the least, about his future.

It would be inconceivable to think a manager as tuned-in as Howe would not have second-guessed his leading scorer’s disillusion. In perhaps the most revealing moment of Friday’s press conference he was asked whether, when Newcastle sealed Champions League qualification in May, he was confident of Isak fulfilling the three remaining years on his contract.

“I was not thinking of any individual in that moment, so I can’t really give an answer on that,” he said.

View image in fullscreen Eddie Howe said of the standoff with Isak: ‘No situation is ever as simple as it seems on the outside.’ Photograph: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United/Getty Images

Then came a query as to why Newcastle had acted as if blind to Isak’s unhappiness and potential for disruptive behaviour in June. Had they placed the striker on the market then, an auction would surely have unfolded. There would also have been more alternative attacking options for the board to pursue.

“I understand why you might think that,” said Howe. “But no situation is ever as simple as it seems on the outside.”

It rather provokes the question as to whether he had embraced reality while Newcastle’s Saudi Arabian owners remained in denial and believed they could keep Isak for at least another year. Technically they can, but unhappy players do not make for harmonious, let alone winning, teams.

Howe said of Isak, among other things, skipping the pre-season tour of Singapore and South Korea: “I don’t think it has been healthy for us. I don’t deny that’s been a big challenge. Alex, for me, is one of the best strikers in the world, if not the best. To miss him from your squad leaves a huge gap.

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“Morale was certainly affected early on during pre-season. It was a difficult period for us. There was nothing I could do to affect that.

“When you have a player that good who is not part of your group it’s difficult for the other players to fully understand it and to know how to react.

“But there’s been an acceptance we have to make the best of the situation; the atmosphere within the group has been very good in the last couple of weeks. I can’t look you in the eye and say it’s brought us closer together, but, sometimes, these things can unify you in a way you didn’t know possible.”

For all Isak’s rich attacking talent the road to reintegration is perilous. “I don’t think you can achieve anything with a squad that’s not totally united and keen to represent the club,” said Howe, pointedly. “In order for any player to play well you have to be in that mental place where you want to play. The league’s so hard that, if you’re not there, the games can become very difficult, very quickly.”

The problem is that unless Liverpool make an offer somewhere nearer Newcastle’s £150m valuation of Isak than the £110m they have had rejected, the club is unlikely to sanction a sale.

Liverpool are not expected to bid again until Newcastle sign at least one replacement. A deal for Brentford’s Yoane Wissa is close, but, for the moment, Howe is without a specialist striker. He will field a winger, Anthony Gordon, out of position at centre-forward against Villa.

“Alex’s situation’s not in my hands,” he said before turning typically diplomatic. “But I’ll go with whatever hand I’m dealt.”

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