Suggesting that Newcastle are the wronged party in the Alexander Isak affair has prompted quite the reaction. It seems there is plenty of blame to go around, but Liverpool fans feel aggrieved to be portrayed as the villains.

We’ve collected some of the many responses from the Mailbox and pulled up some of the comments from Below The Line.

Send your views on Isak and any other subject – perhaps Eze to Arsenal, not Spurs? – to theeditor@football365.com

 

Winty’s lost the plot
Wow. Just wow. Sarah Winterburn there with one of the weirdest takes on the whole Isak saga. I’ll try and address some of her points, but really the argument is so circular, it’s hard to find a way in to it as it spins round and round.

1. ‘Now you might argue that Alexander Isak is not ‘worth’ more than the £110m bid made by Liverpool but your views are irrelevant unless you are either of the clubs looking to agree a number based on what he is worth to them – Exactly. Unless you are LFC or NUFC masquerading as a footy writer, then your views are irrelevant, yet here you are

2. We also absolutely know that Liverpool are well aware that he will cost more than £110m – Ok. So negotiate. That’s how this sh*t works.

3. It was purely designed to unsettle Isak and make the situation at Newcastle so intolerable to all that they would accept £120m. – Awww nahhhh, not £120,000,000, the absolute mingebags!!!

4. those ‘promises’ mean the square root of f*** all if they are not on paper. – Cool. Great way to maintain a relationship.

5. ‘you can leave when you want to wherever you want for any fee’. – Literally no one is saying that

6. all it needed was for both Liverpool and Isak to play within the rules. – Which rules? Surely you can’t expect them to act gentlemanly as apparently that means ‘the square root of f*** all’

7. Had Liverpool bid £120m in July – when Newcastle United still had hope of replacing Isak – What world is this where LFC are responsible for NUFC’s recruitment?

Just overall a very strange take from someone more who’s usually more level headed and pragmatic.
Matt. Liverpool.

 

Different opinion = rage bait
Will Sarah now rewrite the article replacing the keywords Alexander Isak and Liverpool with Yoane Wissa and Brentford and express outrage with Newcastle and sympathy for Brentford?

Probably not as there will not be as many clicks and raging replies to it.
The real Andrew S (Hate that I and many others will take the bait and respond)

 

Isak worth more to Newcastle than Liverpool
Sarah Winterburn’s piece on the culpability for the Isak transfer saga was interesting, but missed the mark in two important respects.

First, it assumes Newcastle were willing to sell Isak in July for £125m. At best this is a guess, but more realistically it’s a bad guess. In July Newcastle strongly indicated a disinclination to sell, were pursuing the signing of Ekitike to play alongside Isak and apparently turned down an initial offer of £110m with such vehemence that Liverpool considered further negotiations pointless. Moreover, if Newcastle genuinely wish to secure a replacement for Isak before selling, there has been no possibility of any deal so far this summer. The evidence strongly suggests that Winterburn’s hypothesis of a July deal is just not credible.

Second, the article makes the reasonable point that Newcastle are entitled to seek a valuation that reflects Isak’s worth to Newcastle. Yet it ignores Liverpool’s corresponding right to value the player according to his worth to them. It would be unsurprising if Isak’s value to Liverpool were less than his to Newcastle. F365 has repeatedly made the point that Liverpool are already well furnished with attackers and Isak is in many senses a luxury signing. Equally, Liverpool has demonstrated superior ability to attract players this summer. This may mean neither club can agree on a price and no deal takes place, but to apportion blame to Liverpool for not accepting Newcastle’s valuation is every bit as wrong as blaming Newcastle for not selling at a price that suits Liverpool.
R Verne, London

 

Agent of chaos
I read the F365 piece entitled ‘Isak should be raging at Liverpool not Newcastle‘

But it’s wrong. Neither Liverpool nor Newcastle are to blame here. The blame is squarely on Isak’s agent.

When he was negotiating his contract with the barcodes his agent should have insisted on an actual legal clause that allowed him to leave if X club made a bid.

What kind of legal professional takes the word of a company who has nothing to gain by keeping their word and everything to lose?

I have a friend who works for mino raiolas agency and the first thing he said was “rookie mistake by isaks agent, that ‘agreement’ should have been written down, notarised and filed. Never take someone’s word on a legal matter”

Both Liverpool and Newcastle are trying do what’s best for their clubs and it’s the job of isaks agent to do what’s best for his client. He failed.
Lee

Sackable offences
I thought Ratt hit the nail on the head today. How can players miss training sessions, games, attack their employers on insta or X, without any consequences? Why does Isak (not that he is the only example you could name, as a Spurs fan I well remember the Modric saga) get away scot free with breaking the employment contract he signed with Newcastle? I guess they can’t sack him because of the money involved – any other trade he’d be fired- but there should at least be some financial consequences.
Regards
Sam.

 

Trent’s apples and Isak’s oranges
I remember a time in the distant past when the Editor of these fine pages wrote an article explaining that (£100m+ valued player) TAA just had to run his contract down and leave on a free and ‘only a narrow-minded and perspective-challenged minority will begrudge him that decision.’

Not one word typed about the behaviour of Real Madrid in facilitating this plan and unsettling the player over the course of a couple of years. Behaviour which they have plenty of form for.

Now the same Editor is incandescent that Liverpool’s opening bid was ‘only’ £110m to secure the services of a coveted player. Real Madrid, according to Sarah, would never have paid what TAA was worth so it’s completely ok for them to get him for nothing. Liverpool value Isak at £110m (possibly more but negotiations are a thing) and offered them the money and they’re pariahs.

Unsurprising to see who the moral outrage is reserved for.
James Outram

 

Isak and Ekitike curiosity
Its been a long summer of the Isak hulaballoo and there’s 2 things that stick out that I don’t understand why they haven’t been discussed more (although its quite possible they have and I missed it)

Firstly, how was there no mention of Isak wanting to move until arsenal had signed Gyokeres and Liverpool signed Ekitike. The only two clubs that realistically could have bought him this summer and he waits until both those avenues are closed (-ish in liverpools case) to throw his toys out of the pram. Are we led to believe Liverpool would have bought Ekitike without giving Isak’s agent a call first. And by all accounts, well Jamie Carragher, Liverpool rang Newcastle when they bid for Ekitike to enquire about Isak. It all just seems stupid from every party involved. The timing just seems bizarre.

Secondly Gyokeres must be delighted with how the Isak situation. He went down the exact same avenue with Sporting that Isak is going. Strike, insta messages, ill never play for the club, broken promises etc etc etc. Nothing has been said about Gyokeres. Character never called into question and Isak is being vilified. Every rent a pundit on radio and tv is having a pop. And good aul Viktor is strolling around with it all forgotten. The absolute cherry on the top is Newcastle and their fans, who are near effigy levels of rage and anger over Isak’s behaviour are drooling at thought of signing Wissa who, checks notes….is behaving exactly like Isak to get his move to Newcastle.

I know Newcastle fans want to emulate Arsenals success, be seen as a top team but didnt foresee them challenging Arsenals only actual achievement over the past 5-6 years of consistently winning the Premier Leagues most hated/ delusional fans.
Hammer McHammerface

 

Newcastle’s ego
Sarah W is normally a f365er that I have enormous time for — but on this case I think she’s adding 2 +2 = whatever the hell she wants to fit a narrative. Why on earth would Liverpool bid the exact amount a player is worth immediately? It’s a transaction, you start low and end somewhere in the middle — as F365 point out, all parties would have accepted around about 125m as a decent price — but that would have been the final result of a few back and forths between the club — as has been the case for transfers (and virtually every negotiation) since time immemorial. Apparently Newcastle’s response to the 110m offer was simply ‘no’ — no room for negotiation, no wiggle room, nothing. Liverpool have been down this road before (Virgil) and knew well to leave alone. What are they meant to do — keep on bidding for a player the Owners have zero interest in selling? State owned clubs don’t care about finance – they care about reputation: Newcastle feel humiliated and angry.
Dan, (currently south of france in a tropical storm) London

 

Promises, promises
So Newcastle broke promises – what promises? Apparently a new contract has been offered to Isak, making him the clubs best paid player and with a release clause in 2026. So was the broken promise a new contract? No, as everyone is clear that the broken promise was that he be allowed to leave Newcastle this summer.

So was Newcastle’s promise to sell him broken? Liverpool have made one bid. One. This bid came after Isak had said he wanted to move away from the club, half way through the summer. Why didn’t he share at the end of the season he wanted to leave? At least then the club can sell with a longer time to replace him, he is the one who timed his hissy fit so that the club had less time to replace him. I could also have some sympathy if a bid was made, rejected, then he got ticked off, but this isn’t how it happened. He moaned, b*ggered off to Spain to miss the pre-season tour, it was only then that a bid came in.

That bid was not at the asking price, which has been £150m since before the season ended. The bid received wasn’t close to that. So was the promise made to Isak that he could be sold for £110m? If you are putting out a statement to share ‘the truth’ commit and do it, don’t give some vague, puff pastry guff about being betrayed without explaining how.
So if he wasn’t promised a new contract, if he wasn’t promised he would be sold for less than the asking price which has been clear for a long time, what promise is broken?

Isak keeps doubling down expecting Newcastle to blink and do what? Miss out on the money which would go towards his replacement? He’s the one who has isolated himself from the squad. He didn’t have to do that. He could have carried on like a professional paid to do a job while talking with the club, instead he’s gone to war with the entire organisation, when it is still not clear how they have really wronged him. If he’d reached this point after multiple bids were rejected nearer the asking price, I could understand it. There’s been one bid, only one, three weeks ago, £40m off the asking price. And I could understand a reaction if Liverpool had bid closer to the price, £125-130m is a record fee and sets NUFC up nicely in the transfer market either now or in the future. That hasn’t happened either.

And please don’t anyone ‘but Wissa’ me. No-one endorses his behaviour any more than Isak’s and no Newcastle fan I have heard/seen has come on here claiming Brentford should just sell him because its Newcastle asking, we just don’t have the same sense of entitlement as Liverpool fans. Brentford are messing about with the price, Newcastle have at least been consistent. For what its worth IMO Newcastle should have moved on from Wissa weeks ago and been working a different target, but no-one can accuse NUFC’s recruitment team of consistent competence.

Aside from the move to Liverpool what has Isak gained by all this? His reputation is in the toilet, this will hang around his neck forever. The pressure he will be under after all this farce will be immense – it already would have been as a British record signing, but having done all this to get the move he has to be stratospherically good for Liverpool. Look at the pelters Gyokeres has taken after just one game, and then multiply that by 100. So many people will want to see him fail, not just NUFC fans.

Like most of the football observing world I just want this to end now. Its incredibly boring, petty and no-one looks good. It will all end eventually but I honestly have no idea how and who the winner will be.
James, Leeds

 

Honourable Liverpool
A neutral fan following Sarah’s article would see dirty cheaty Liverpool submitting a £110m bid for nefarious reasons.

Sarah conveniently (see the insinuation?) or forgetfully omits that right at the start of the transfer window, in June, before Isak threw his toys out of his pram, LFC contact Newcastle to negotiate terms. There was market talk that Liverpool were prepared to go to £120m + 10m add ons, which whilst lower than Newcastle’s £150m punitive and exorbitant amount, may have been a reasonable compromise. That deal could have been made in June.

But guess what was Newcastle’s response? Utter refusal to negotiate. Not for sale. Period.

Given that kind of stonewalling response from Newcastle, what was Liverpool supposed to do? How would one negotiate with a party who is not interested in negotiating? We all know how asking prices work; lfc have sold Nunez and Diaz at prices lower than their asking prices, because LFC were prepared to negotiate.

Sorry Winty, your hypothetical of £120m in July, allowing Newcastle to save face, would not have been possible at all. Once Newcastle stonewalled and refused to contemplate allowing Isak to leave (which is what refusing to negotiate means), Isak saw no choice or saw every opportunity to down tools and go on strike.

LFC gave an opportunity to Newcastle to save face, to negotiate a fair deal, way back in June. LFC have a history of making hard but fair deals eg salah, Alexis, Mane. Even paying world record sums for VvD and Alisson. One thing it could and would not do, was to negotiate with Newcastle who refused to negotiate.

If the situation has turned really ugly now, I (biased party, I know) don’t see how Liverpool can be faulted by throwing sneaky bids when Newcastle refused to even negotiate, starting the whole sequence of events of Isak going on strike.

I believe LFC have behaved honourably, and have been willing (given their track record) to pay what they deem is market price. None of their tapping up, using media, encouraging player to run down contract (hint Real and Barca). In fact, not because LFC are goody two shoes, but if article 17 were to be invoked, it would be imperative for LFC to demonstrate that it was not colluding with the player.

If Sarah would like to blame anyone, blame Newcastle for mismanagement, for pretending the Isak issue would go away for another year by hiding their heads in the sand. LFC gave Newcastle a chance to sit a the table to negotiate early on in June; it’s Newcastle who refused their chance to save face and end this on a good note. That cant be on LFC.
Gab YNWA
PS Good luck Newcastle; you’ve just reinforced why top players wouldn’t want to join you in future. Fergie claimed negotiating with Daniel Levy was like peeing blood. Isak probably will feel the same dealing with Newcastle management, and I’m sure he will let his fellow pros know all about it.

 

Liverpool’s long game
Sarah Winterburn is right that Alexander Isak should be annoyed with Liverpool, but he should also be a bit annoyed with Newcastle United.

On the other hand, whoever controls transfers at Liverpool and leaks things to the media has managed to unsettle someone they clearly had little intention of actually signing. Isak is a very important player at a club who aren’t yet a direct rival, but who will try to use their seemingly limitless state-adjacent wealth to compete regularly for a Champions League place and, you’d think inevitably, the Premier League title too. The harm done to Newcastle’s preseason and the start of the season so far looks fairly significant. Whoever was responsible for that at Liverpool’s end has, anonymously, played a blinder with that.
Ed Quoththeraven

 

Scouse maths
Liverpool offered between 73.33% and 80% of what Newcastle are asking for Isak (£110/120m v £150m)
Newcastle offered 66.7% of what Brentford are asking for Wissa (£40m v £60m)

But ‘Newcastle are on the right side of the argument’ while Liverpool are ‘playing a dirty game’.
Peekay

 

Numbers game
I mostly entirely agree with Sarah’s piece on the Isak transfer, in terms of the blame primarily lying with Liverpool and Alexander Isak, rather than with Newcastle United.

Just wanted to quibble with one sentence in particular: “Had Liverpool bid £120m in July – when Newcastle United still had hope of replacing Isak – the two clubs would probably have settled somewhere at the £125m plus add-ons mark, which would be enough for Newcastle to claim a British record fee and keep their dignity”.

That may be the case, but Newcastle United’s response to a 120m bid in July may equally possibly have been to set the arbitrary expected transfer fee even higher. Why exactly would they settle for 125m in July? Sarah mentions that this would be a British record fee, but based on my Wikipedia + Bank of England Inflation Calculator check, a bid of 113m GBP would also have been a British record fee (surpasses 106.8m paid for Enzo Fernandez). Newcastle – as is their right – are not setting the fee to be any particular reasonable amount, they are setting the fee to be prohibitive. The intention was to set the asking price so high that nobody would meet it; a less extreme version of the Neymar/Barcelona/PSG situation. The criteria to accept the bid is not ‘British transfer record’, the criteria is ‘being able to tell Newcastle fans that the offer was too ridiculously high to turn down’. Liverpool/FSG know what Newcastle want, but they don’t know how exactly this translates into a specific number. They don’t want to pay [whatever] GBP if they could pay [whatever-minus-5m] GBP instead; that is not how sensible clubs like Liverpool operate.

It may frustrate and bore people but there is a reason why negotiations (not just transfer negotiations) tend to drag on until the final moment possible. It is about brinkmanship and persuasion and game theory.
Oliver (It may also end with no Alexander Isak transfer actually occurring, which would presumably frustrate and bore Alexander Isak himself) Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland

 

Saga taking its toll
This Isak to Liverpool saga is basically Inception. Every morning I wake up thinking it’s done, and then boom another layer of the transfer dream begins.

Layer 1: Liverpool are “interested.”

Layer 2: Newcastle “don’t want to sell.”

Layer 3: Klopp (sorry, The Artist Formerly Known as Klopp) left, so who exactly is dreaming this?

Layer 4: Fabrizio Romano whispers, “Here we go… maybe.”

By the time we’re five dreams down, Arne Slot is building a team around Isak, Wirtz is wandering around the park confused like Cillian Murphy on a private jet, and Eddie Howe is clutching a PSR calculator like Leonardo DiCaprio clutching that spinning top.

And of course, in the deepest, darkest dream layer, Isak scores against Liverpool next Monday anyway because some things are just inevitable.

So yes, it’s Inception. Only instead of dreams within dreams, it’s transfer rumours within transfer rumours, until the window closes and we all wake up sweaty, muttering “Was it all real? Did Liverpool actually bid £100m+, or did Fabrizio just plant the idea in our heads?”

Cheers,
Gaptoothfreak, Man. Utd., Lisbon (Currently using Aphex Twin to soundtrack my all dreams)

 

📣 Below The Line – a selection of some of the 427 comments submitted in response to Winty’s opinion/lazy journalism/bias/rage baiting…

Keith Lowden – No one should have any sympathy for anyone involved in transfers. Isak is handling it badly sure, refusing to play etc isn’t a good look. If the shoe was on the other foot and Newcastle wanted to sell him, put him in the reserves, didn’t give him a squad number, make him train on his own etc to force him out there wouldn’t be so much outrage. It works both ways in football.

 

Jamie Henderson – While the value to Newcastle may be far higher, the same is true of most teams with a star player better than they could hope to replace him with. Should Palace be holding out for 100m for Eze? Maybe Brentford should tell Newcastle its 80m or nothing for Wissa? Its daft. In all this, we’ve lost sight of the fact that 110m is enormous money. The most ever between two English sides. As a starting point. It’s being painted as though Liverpool offered 25m and Stefan Bajcetic on loan. Newcastle were hawking Isak around to Chelsea for 70m 12 months ago. One phenomenal season later doesn’t set the starting price at 150m. Of course Newcastle don’t have to sell. And maybe they won’t. But this is how they grow and escape PSR. Invest wisely in 2-3 of the next Isaks and go again. They’ve done it before but this digging in of their heels is hurting them more than anyone given Isak has made it abundantly clear he won’t go back. This talk of reintegration and winning the battle v the Red Cartel etc is just small time and incredibly blinkered. But fair play to them.

 

Thom Clem – Every transfer starts with the club sounding out the player via agents or intermediaries. It would be ludicrous to enter negotiations with a club, agree a fee and then find out a player isn’t interested (although that might explain Newcastle successes in the market this summer). You talk about Coutinho and Trent and short memories. If its illegal, why did nothing happen in those circumstances and why did the football world tell Liverpool fans to suck it up?

 

JimBo – The Isak price has always been clear at £150m since the very end of the season, I don’t endorse what Wissa is doing but Brentford have just shifted the goalposts up to £60m from £40m. Unless the promise to Isak was that he could leave if any bid was made equivalent to what Liverpool offered at £110m no promise has been broken. The promise in question is not about contracts, Isak wants to leave pure and simple. But unless Paul Mitchell or anyone else at NUFC told Isak you can leave if £110m is offered NUFC haven’t done anything wrong.

 

Dixon Hunt – This whole article should just say: “This is mess a club gets into when putting Eddie Howe and his relatives in charge of transfers”.

 

Jerry Myer – I think Ms Winterbum is the one “thrusting out her bottom lip”. Liverpool made an offer, rejected. Since then they have kept quiet and gone about their business very professionally. If Newcastle can’t manage their staff properly they should look at themselves and not try to blame others…

 

Harry B – Nobody should be getting angry at all, it happens all the time. It happened when United were buying Berbatov, it happened with Ronaldo and Madrid, Suarez and Barcelona – it’s happened forever, with almost every major transfer. The selling club tries to set a prohibitive price to put suitors off, buying clubs low ball and work up to see at what price they might get the player they want. Meanwhile, the player sits it out, normally grumbling about the whole thing. The price will eventually be a compromise between what the selling club wants and the buying club is willing to pay. Only the tabloids make it out to be a drama.

💬 Anything to add? Go Below The Line or email theeditor@football365.com.