Alexander Isak and a failure in leadership | OneFootball

Bombshell – Alexander Isak wants to leave.

This will be one of many reports into Alexander Isak’s transfer position and it is the fault of the club’s own making.

When Alexander Isak signed in 2022, he was seen as a risk.

Though the 2020-21 season he had scored 17 La Liga goals, the following season he managed only six in the league. Despite this, Newcastle offered him a huge opportunity in the Premier League and broke their transfer record for him.

His first season at St James’ Park, it was clear that the talent was there, but a number of injuries meant he missed a chunk of football. He helped secure Champions League football that year and the chance of playing in Europe’s elite competition came much earlier than everyone was expecting at Newcastle.

The following two seasons, Alexander Isak has blown up.

He is one of the best strikers in the world and everyone is able to see that. Across all competitions, he scored 52 goals including his first in the Champions League (vs PSG Away) and the winner to seal Newcastle’s first trophy in 56 years.

Securing Champions League once again was an amazing achievement and for many fans, myself included, this summer was going to be “transformative.” We were going to see Newcastle United try and take the next steps. The club hadn’t signed a direct first teamer for three windows and the PSR situation had been resolved to a degree.

One of the key reasons why we are here is because of Isak’s goals. A fantastic scoring run which saw Newcastle go up the table over the festive period and his general play across the season was great. Towards the end, you could tell that the load of playing week in week out was starting to affect him and the goals did dry up a bit.

However, in the background of the 2023/24 season, the first bit of this dragged out transfer drama began.

Amanda Staveley promised a new contract to Alexander Isak in 2024. The ambition was to make him the club’s top earner and one of the best paid players in the league. Having  scored 25 goals that (2023/24) season and shown his capabilities to be one of the best in the league, it seemed like a reasonable position.

However, in the background, PCP Partners were struggling to win a power battle. Incidents like this was one of the reasons why Darren Eales, the CEO, felt that PCP Partners needed to leave the club. Reports that particularly Amanda Staveley’s involvement in the day to day running of the club and her particularly close relationships with playing staff and coaching staff was not helpful for Eales and he felt stood in the way of him to effectively work as CEO. The promise from Staveley to Isak was not one she was in a position to keep.

PCP Partners then left Newcastle in the Summer of 2024, a win for Eales as he solidified his position. Amanda and Mehrdad leaving was a blow for Eddie Howe.

Then, following on from this, Paul Mitchell was appointed. An ally of Eales, he came in like a bull in a china shop. His infamous line about the transfer strategy not being fit for purpose (the irony) meant that the relationship between him and Howe was bad from the start.

But the other thing he did was put the contract talks for Isak on ice.

Alexander Isak reportedly earns £120,000p/w and is on a contract until 2028. In the summer of 2024, it would be expected that Isak could claim to be one of the top strikers in the league, but this was after one good full season and that Newcastle in the PSR position they were in, should hold off signing the new contract. You could imagine that if at the time, £180,000p/w was offered to Isak, then a deal would have been signed.

The season just gone, Alexander Isak proves again that he is one of the best in the world, and in March 2025, the promise of contract talks are set out by Eales, but only to happen after the end of the season.

The logic would be, we do not know where we are going to finish. We don’t want Isak to take his foot off the gas. Lets not distract anyone. Given his form, maybe he is in too strong a negotiating position. He has years left on his contract. What if the talks come to a standstill and fail? What are the effects on him then given we are so close to securing UCL.

Though there is logic there, the fundamental issue is that we were happy to say he is the best striker in the league. We were happy he was scoring goals that would take us to Champions League football for the second time in three years and winning cup finals. But we weren’t happy to pay him the money he believes he is owed.

The suggestion to put the talks on hold to the end of the season was a massive gamble and it does seem that it hasn’t worked out.

He looks the finished article, moulded by Eddie Howe and his team to be one of the best, and is ambitious. Is now the time to go to an “elite” club capable of winning the biggest trophies. However, he has always spoken publicly of his love for the club, the fans and the project, but taking the emotion out of it, you can see why now is a good time to move.

He is 25, in generally good physical fitness for a player which is given the moniker of being injury prone and at a club which is not yet sitting at the “big 6” table. Furthermore, from his perspective, he can go where he wants and demand what he wants.

This problem has been set off by a very disruptive 12-18 months within the Newcastle United hierarchy.

The power struggle between Darren Eales and Amanda Staveley played out with Eales being the victor in that regard. Following Dan Ashworth leaving Newcastle for Manchester United, a new Sporting Director in Paul Mitchell is appointed and reportedly falls out very quickly with Eddie Howe. Eddie had lost a key ally in the boardroom and started playing politics before the start of last season. Then the awful news that Darren Eales was stepping down following his blood cancer diagnosis. Though he has set out that he will be working until a replacement is found, one can understand the distractions this would lead to.

Then the most underappreciated meeting in recent Newcastle United history occurred during the last day of the season.

Upon confirmation of Champions League football, Yasir Al-Rumayyan and Eddie Howe sit down. They talk about the future and next season. A few days later it is made public that Paul Mitchell has handed in his notice and then leaves at the end of June.

This in my opinion was a power play by Eddie and clearly whatever was agreed in that meeting between the Chairman and Manger, irked Mitchell so muchmhe had to leave.

With all of this going on, this has left Newcastle thin on the ground in terms of people dealing with contracts and signing players too, but primarily for PIF and existing players, wider strategic decisions at the club.

We have seen talk of the stadium and new training ground gone quiet. When we compare what has happened at Manchester United, who have seen wider strategic decisions at their club be delivered quickly (rightly or wrongly) since the involvement of INEOS, decisions at Newcastle are glacial.

Most fans appreciate that these decisions take time, but when you are a player and you have been promised the world and and that the club is going to disrupt the ‘Big Six’, actions matter.

And I believe it is inaction which has resulted in the position we are in with Alexander Isak. The failure to secure Alexander Isak to a new contract  is the biggest failing of the club in years.

If Amanda Staveley’s promise had been actioned, we wouldn’t be here.

If Paul Mitchell didn’t put the talks on ice, we wouldn’t be here.

If Darren Eales had picked the phone up to Isak’s agent in March and made him the offer he deserves, we wouldn’t be here.

Now it looks like a generational talent has had his head turned, potentially to a club who seem to be taking their chance at building a generational team.

Though there is obvious benefits to receiving £150million for a player, that isn’t what I want to talk about today.

Alexander Isak is the best player we have had since Alan Shearer in my opinion and letting him leave is a failure of leadership from the board.