Do you want to sign Alexander Isak? Try £ 150 million as a conversation starter, but it could be a short chat

There are some things you really have to know about Alexander Isak.

1. He is very good.

2. It’s not yours.

3. You can’t have it, no matter how much you talk about having it.

4. It is not for sale.

5. You can’t afford it.

6. Even if it were on sale and you could afford it, you can’t have it yet.

7. Newcastle United won the Carabao Cup.

8. Point seven is not strictly relevant here, it is only fun to write it.

9. Indie, he is ours.

Much has changed to Newcastle in recent times – from bad to be to be good, from being a cemetery for ambition to have unlimited possibilities and, the largest of the lot, The transformation of perennial losers into glorious winners – But one thing that remains intact is a visceral response from supporters to the notion of selling their best players. It is like grumpy the nausea, the itching of a bruised scar.

There is a rich and depressing story here. In the 80s was Peter Beardsley, Chris Waddle and Paul Gascoigne, the Silver family was sold and replaced inadequately. The mid -90s brought a beautiful revocation, but Kevin Keegan’s view standing out of the Milburn stand in front of the discontented fans who defend the departure of Andy Cole at Manchester United remains iconic. He asked for trust and took it, but the pain was still felt.

Under the property without the love of Mike Ashley, Alan Pardew insisted that Andy Carroll would not be sold only to scribbling a few days later to bring Shefki Kuqi on a free one that Carroll had been, in fact, to be sold in Liverpool. And even when an agitated club had a semblance of strategy-aperous young and economic, largely from France-came with the awareness that anyone who would soon disappeared. Even now, the Fan still sing “Don’t Sell (Yohan) Cabaye”.

Since then Saudi Guide acquisition of Newcastle It was ratified in October 2021 and followed a madness of spending (sensitive), there were many wagons indicating a day of reckoning. In a panorama of profit and sustainability rules (PSR), all clubs must possibly exchange and the dangers that surround that they were warned in the summer of last year when, in a certain despair, Newcastle filled a 60 million pound black ($ 79 million), downloading Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Mint.

So, St James’ Park was very open for business. The Newcastle undertook in detailed negotiations with Liverpool on Anthony Gordon, the English wing, and took a speculative call from Chelsea as regards Isak, whose repercussions extended this season when Howe was required to fix an unstable team without having any signature ready for the first team to provide them with their competition.

That perspective is now modified. Having further cut Lloyd Kelly and Miguel Almiron from January wage invoice, Newcastle will enter the next period of trading in a healthier position and contemplates a reconstruction. After three transfer windows without a lot in terms of help, Howe needs and deserves reinforcements; Without, until it is in terms of important infrastructure projects, it is he, his staff and his players who continue to promote the history of Newcastle and progress.

Darren Eales, the CEO, spoke much more fog than Isak and other elite artists in a video call with journalists last month than he had asked in January last year when he answered “yes” to a question about every Newcastle player who has a price under PSR.

“We have no intention of all those players who are moved. We are not under the gun or something,” he said this time. He added: “We have an ambitious property and wants the best for the club. So from that perspective, it would be crazy for us to consider it.”

Alexander Isak’s goal in Wembley against Liverpool helped Newcastle to win the Carabao Cup (STRA Forster/Getty Images))

Eales has also been asked that Isak is continually connected to other clubs, such as Arsenal, Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona. “We have that ambition to be a high -level club, so there is a sense of annoyance because we are almost seen as that next category at the bottom, so it is a free game to talk about our players,” he replied.

Free game, surely it was. There have been moments in this season in which Isak marked and the immediate answer, on television or elsewhere, was a version of “good, it is not surprising that Arsenal wants it”, rather than an evaluation of what could mean for Newcastle, his employers. Let’s not forget, a club that now has (finally) won a trophy, has guaranteed European football next season and is still positioned well for a place in the Champions League.

We did it alone, here to Atletico. Not long ago, our writers of Arsenal He discussed if the club should go to IsakHow he would adapt to the Mikel Arte system and how much they would have spent for him. It was absolutely legitimate as a concept because Isak was at the top of Arsenal Hitlist for a while and, let’s not forget, our writers in Newcastle (cough) listed regularly and write on Howe’s transfer objectives. Yet, from the point of view of Tyneside, it can only seem irritating.

Newcastle wants to be arsenal. They want to be better than Arsenal. They don’t want help Arsenal and it is difficult to see how Isak’s sale can really benefit in the long term, despite the money he would bring, when buying a truly elite midfielder is notoriously problematic and expensive. Gordon, Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali have all become high -level players under Howe if they weren’t before, but Isak is the one who feels irreplaceable. Priceless, too.

Against Brentford Wednesday, Isak reached 20 goals in the Premier League for the second time for the second time, the first Newcastle player to have done it, meeting a cross by Jacob Murphy. It could and should have been more. There was a wonderful move when he confused the defenders and then played Harvey Barnes when he could shoot, and other possibilities that went wrong, but it is a combination of rhythm, deception, ability, deception and grace. That’s all.

“I am very happy that he is a Newcastle player,” said Howe later, a smile that plays on his lips. “You are defined by your ability to score goals in this championship and your attacker players must really take this responsibility. He did so incredibly well since he was here. I don’t think this was his most beautiful game and I don’t think it would be surprised by me that he said so much for us.

Isak was soon withdrawn with a small report to the groin that Howe said that “was not only safe in its movements”, but the initial prognosis is that international Sweden will be fit and available for Monday’s appointment in Leicester City. It will be more hunting.

Isak, without a doubt, is the most skilled center-raising of the Newcastle by Alan Shearer and, at 25, still has his best days in front of him. The club made a bet calculated when they signed it in August 2022, paying 63 million £ 63 million for a player who had had a limited impact in a spell prior to Borussia Dortmund and was still considered inconsistent. To create a useful profit on that investment, a tax of disintegration would require. Try £ 150 million as a conversation starter, but do not make the conversation for the conversation.

Isak has remained three years on his current contract and is the intention of Newcastle to start the talks on an extension this summer, but there is no sense of panic because there is no need to be. In recent weeks and the outburst of emotion that has arrived with it shows that winning things are no longer an impossible dream and if they can ensure a return to the Champions League, it would begin to think that Europe is their natural home.

At the same time, this is also a topic that Newcastle fans must get used to, but not identically at first. In the past, they lost their best players because the club was too small, fond or depleted to keep them and in the end because the St James park was not a place where excellence could thrive. Now it’s the opposite. They are on a trajectory upwards with design to reach the top and are producing and developing world -class talents.

In the end, there will be a big sale because this is the Newcastle model, just as it is of all the others. But as Eales says, they would be “crazy” to sell Isak at the precise moment in which it represents everything they are and want to be. They don’t need and, to change it, why should it want to go? He has shown that he can score at Wembley and shake the ground, which can raise a trophy to Newcastle, which can play in Europe. And he knows that 300,000 people will take to the streets to offer him adoration.

You can speak everything you want, but you can keep your hands out.

(Photo above: Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)