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When it comes to Newcastle United and the summer window, there are few certainties.
Injuries, a lack of Champions League football, the volume of reinforcements required and the shackles of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) combine to make it a complex and challenging trading period.
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Yet, while much of Newcastle’s transfer blueprint is still being finalised, for incomings and outgoings, there is a conviction shared from boardroom to dug-out: they must keep hold of Alexander Isak and continue to build a team around the striker.
The tone during internal recruitment discussions has been that, if Newcastle were to seriously consider allowing Isak to leave, then they might as well give up on any medium-term ambitions of competing at the very top. A fee north of £100million ($126.6m), as Isak would surely command in the present market, may extinguish PSR concerns and help finance a squad overhaul, but to what end?
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Nobody at Newcastle wants to lose Bruno Guimaraes — who Eddie Howe views as pretty much the perfect profile of No 6 for his philosophy — but there is a begrudging acceptance that the 26-year-old may have outpaced the club’s progress. Should an elite side make a weighty offer, and given the presence of the release clause in Guimaraes’ contract that must be a possibility, then a parting of ways may be reluctantly agreed if it helps finance a wider rebuild.
The stance on Isak’s future, however, is subtly but definitively different.
Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain are among the clubs being linked. Yet, if any of those potential suitors hoped that Newcastle’s struggles to secure European football for 2024-25 had softened their position on keeping Isak, they are gravely mistaken.
And not only because there was a sell-on clause, believed to be around 10 per cent, inserted into the £60m club-record deal when Newcastle lured Isak from Real Sociedad in August 2022, which will lessen the PSR bonus of any potential sale.
More important is the fact Isak is already threatening consistent world-class form and, at 24, he is yet to enter his prime.
“To be the team we want to be, we need to keep our best players,” Howe said on Tuesday, following Isak’s goal against Everton, his 19th of the season.
Howe adores the Sweden international, describing his potential as “limitless”, and identified him as the ideal striker — comfortable across the frontline and even as a No 10 — to suit his playing style during his first summer window.
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Although Howe had been aware of Isak since his days in Sweden’s youth sides, it was when he watched the striker performing in La Liga that he became convinced of his talents. Less than half an hour into a Barcelona match that was shown to him by the club’s recruitment team, Howe is said to have been so taken by Isak’s technical quality and decision-making that he paused the video and declared that Newcastle had to sign the striker if they could.
Even then, it took an injury to Callum Wilson to persuade the club hierarchy to reach an agreement with La Real. The Spanish club’s hard-ball stance earlier that summer, when they demanded Isak’s £75.9m release clause be met, had deterred Newcastle. The need for an alternative to the injury-ravaged Wilson forced Newcastle back to the table, but the club knew they were taking a calculated gamble.
Newcastle are still operating in a similar market space. They admire the same players as Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal but, should any of those clubs rival Newcastle for a signing, for PSR reasons they cannot compete for the fees and wages being demanded.
It means Newcastle shift to players in the bracket below, often ones tracked long-term by Champions League sides but who, for varying reasons ranging from injury problems to concerns over their potential adaptation to the Premier League, have not been acquired by them.
Isak fitted into that category, having failed to break through at Borussia Dortmund, before dipping from 17 league goals during his first season in Spain to just six in his second. Although Newcastle thought he would excel in English football, they could not be certain.
How rapidly Isak acclimatised makes the deal, in hindsight, almost appear cheap (if £60m can ever be described as such), even with his recurring groin problems.
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He is the joint-fifth top scorer in the Premier League this season, behind Dominic Solanke, Mohamed Salah and Ollie Watkins (all 16) and Erling Haaland (18), who has played for almost seven hours more. Isak is scoring at a quicker rate than anyone who has five or more goals this season, at a rate of one every 106 minutes.
| Player | Goals | xG | Minutes played | Minutes/goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
15 | 14.14 | 1,590 | 106 | |
11 | 6.71 | 1,210 | 110 | |
18 | 21.26 | 2,014 | 111.9 | |
9 | 4.42 | 1,052 | 116.9 | |
16 | 16.48 | 1,908 | 119.3 | |
7 | 7.25 | 857 | 122.4 |
Isak’s 28.9 per cent shot conversion rate is the third-best in the top flight, and his shooting accuracy of 67.4 per cent (the ratio of his shots that are on target) eclipses that of other frontline strikers.
His non-penalty expected goals (xG) per 90 minutes is 0.62, the fourth-best in the league, showing that Isak’s team-mates lay on chances for him, too.
Isak has already surpassed Wilson’s tally of 18 goals for last season and is on course to become the first Newcastle player since Alan Shearer (28 goals) in 2003-04 to reach the 20-goal mark across all competitions (excluding two campaigns in the Championship).
During his Newcastle career so far, Isak has scored 29 goals in 46 starts from an xG of 23.8. His goals per 90 stands at 0.66 and his xG per 90 at 0.63. In the Premier League, those figures increase to 0.72 and 0.65 respectively, with 25 goals across 36 starts.
| Metric | Premier League | All competitions |
|---|---|---|
Appearances (sub) | 36 (8) | 46 (13) |
Minutes played | 3,104 | 3,964 |
Goals | 25 | 29 |
Expected goals (xG) | 22.4 | 23.8 |
Mins per goal | 124.2 | 136.7 |
Trying to find another striker who can produce such top-class scoring figures would involve an exorbitant fee.
Solanke is admired and has Premier League experience, yet he may cost a similar fee to that which Newcastle paid for Isak and is older at 26. The alternative, such as recruiting another overseas import — they have bid for RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko in the past, for example — always brings with it a greater element of risk, especially for a sizeable sum.
During a summer in which Newcastle already need to bring in at least one other forward — as well as a goalkeeper, midfielder and winger, plus multiple defenders — trying to replace the seemingly irreplaceable in Isak feels extremely improbable, if not borderline impossible. Isak paid off handsomely, but another deal may not.
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Come July, Isak will still have four years remaining on his Newcastle contract and there are already murmurings that attention could soon turn to trying to negotiating an improved deal, rather than permitting an exit.
What’s more, there would be reputational damage in losing Isak this summer to one of the clubs who Newcastle hope to eventually rival. That would negatively tarnish the aspirational vision they have been selling to other potential signings.
Of course, this is all theoretical. Newcastle may be absolute in their desire to retain Isak, but they are not the only party involved in any prospective transaction. Newcastle’s progress has not continued on a solely upward trajectory, following a magnificent 2022-23 campaign and, if European qualification is not secured, Isak may become tempted by Champions League offers.
The 24-year-old himself insisted on Tuesday that he does not “want to entertain questions and rumours” about his future and that “of course I want to be here”. Yet, while on international duty for Sweden a fortnight ago, Isak stoked that speculation himself when he declared that, “Everyone knows that the summer is coming and, if things show up, things can happen.” It is hardly an unequivocal commitment to stay, even if Isak is happy on Tyneside and loves playing for Newcastle.
If Arsenal really do view Isak as the striker they require, then they could yet test Newcastle’s resolve. Should no bids arrive for Guimaraes or other first-team players who Newcastle can sell to generate sufficient PSR headspace, then the club may yet be forced into reassessing their attitude towards losing Isak.
For now, though, there is no ambivalence in Newcastle’s stance. Isak is their focal point and their talisman — and their intention is to keep him this summer, regardless of the money that may be thrown at them.
GO DEEPER
The 'Explosion' that took 'joker' Alexander Isak from Stockholm suburb to Champions League
(Top photo: George Wood/Getty Images)