Why Alexander Isak can’t be sold at any price | OneFootball

I think by now, it’s fair to say with certainty that Alexander Isak is the best player to wear a black and white shirt since Alan Shearer retired in 2006.

The number 9 spot has been a position that Newcastle have consistently tried and failed to fill since Shearer left, with a few forwards such as Ba, Cisse, Remy and Wilson temporarily putting a good shift in at filling it, but none of them have come close to the consistency and world class quality that Alexander Isak has displayed.

Unfortunately, knowledge of the Swede’s excellence, stretches well beyond our fanbase.

Arsenal fans on Twitter/X appear to worship him more than they do any of their own players, acting as though the signing of Alexander Isak for them is borderline guaranteed.

Other fanbases have also noticed, with Liverpool’s greatest weakness in their likely title winning squad being the number 9 position, with Chelsea fans also dreaming of signing Isak, given their recent history of throwing their money around at any given opportunity.

There is not a club in the world that would not want Alexander Isak to play for them, especially given the current state of world football. The era of having multiple world class strikers across the premier league, as well as the rest of Europe, is now a thing of the past.

Whilst the Premier League has had eras of Rooney, Drogba, Van Persie, Suarez and Costa all playing around the same time, the league now has only two strikers who can safely claim the title of world class, those being Alexander Isak and Erling Haaland.

As a result of this thinner than ever market, Newcastle United have never been more fortunate to be one of the few clubs so lucky to have such a talent at our disposal. If not for one major problem, I would not even consider the prospect of ever selling this man under any circumstances.

That issue is PSR (Profit and Sustainability Rules) which continue to plague the club’s ability to strengthen our squad.

Having not made any major sales up to now, Newcastle United had to essentially take the summer window off at the beginning of the season and it now appears likely that we may have to do the same this January.

Given the disparity between the stronger and weaker players in our squad, none of our players of lesser importance have any real value, which would open up the ability to spend to the extent we almost certainly want to.

It has been speculated for a few windows now that it would take a big sale by Newcastle United to unlock our spending ability, however, we do not want to sell one of our best players to what is likely to be a Premier League rival in order to do so.

The values being speculated as to why it would take another club to purchase Alexander Isak are correctly astronomical, with £150 million being the main figure that is floated around (These reports all stemming from one journalist originally claiming this is the starting point for clubs to bid, if any club made an approach. Though in that original media report it was stated that actually the £150m figure was simply a way of telling rivals that Alexander Isak isn’t up for sale, rather than that amount being what United would accept for their star striker).

There are very few clubs in world football who have  the finances to spend a fee of £150m+ on one player AND the unrestricted ability to actually go out and do it. If somehow one of them did manage to pull the funds together, however, I still believe Newcastle would be daft to accept.

We are ridiculously close in current quality to both Arsenal and Chelsea, as much as Sky Sports and the like would have you think otherwise, and selling to either of them would be one of the most naive and short-sighted decisions in club history.

The traditional ‘Big 6’ are continuing to stagnate as many of them have finally managed to reach the top of their sky high PSR thresholds, combined with a tonne of general incompetence from many of the higher ups running the clubs.

With even the mighty Man City now showing signs of long awaited fatigue, we may be on course to challenge for Premier League titles far quicker than many may have expected. That chance would quickly be removed and diminished, should we not only lose our world class striker, but give him to one of our rivals in the process.

With some exceptions, clubs often find themselves far worse off following a sale of their best player for big money. Tottenham have twice failed at this with both the Gareth Bale and Harry Kane money, with multiple signings unable to replicate the impact of just one of those world class players. Monaco have not won the Ligue 1 title since Kylian Mbappe left the club in 2017, despite getting over £150 million to reinvest from his sale. The freed up funds that big sales provide, don’t mean all that much if you are unable to fill the void left by the star player themselves.

I’m almost certain there’s not a Newcastle United fan alive who would even consider selling Alexander Isak, in particular, if it was Arsenal who came crawling.

However, the frustration the Newcastle United owners must be facing in navigating PSR, may lead to a little temptation to let him go for astronomical money.