Howe admits he has no more control over Isak’s future at the club, with the striker having gone on strike for a move.
‘Not in my hands’: diplomatic Howe has lost control of Isak’s Newcastle future.
When Eddie Howe was a player for Portsmouth and Bournemouth, he was often reading the broadsheets’ foreign news sections on the way to games on the team bus.
Over twenty years later, it is easy to see the Newcastle manager as some kind of diplomatic envoy due to his skill at crafting well-chosen statements that are full of nuanced between-the-lines subtext.
Few players in the Premier League are more capable of handling a situation like Alexander Isak’s. Even Newcastle’s manager, meanwhile, admits—albeit subtly—that he has lost control of the situation despite maintaining a staunchly courageous façade.
The Swedish striker has effectively gone on strike because he is so eager to make a move to Liverpool. Isak continues to train alone after rejecting calls to rejoin the team. It is believed that he will soon get a fine equal to the maximum amount allowed—two weeks’ wages—for missing Saturday’s season opener against Aston Villa.
“I’ve said many times I want Alex to train and play,” Howe said on Friday. “I’ve had those conversations with him.” Pressed on whether Isak could rejoin the squad before the end of this month, he shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Alex will control that.”
So how did this happen? Last season, Isak left several hints about his thinking. He was unhappy that he had not received the pay increase that he felt he had been promised in the summer of 2024. The 25-year-old was, to put it mildly, ambivalent about his future in an interview with Alan Shearer on the BBC last winter and then prior to the Carabao Cup final.
It is impossible to imagine a manager as perceptive as Howe would not have questioned the disillusionment of his top scorer. He was asked if he was certain that Isak would complete the three years left on his deal when Newcastle qualified for the Champions League in May. This was possibly the most telling question of Friday’s press conference.
Howe said of Isak, among other things, skipping the pre-season tour of Singapore and South Korea: “I don’t think it has been healthy for us. I don’t deny that’s been a big challenge. Alex, for me, is one of the best strikers in the world, if not the best. To miss him from your squad leaves a huge gap.
“Morale was certainly affected early on during pre-season. It was a difficult period for us. There was nothing I could do to affect that.
“When you have a player that good who is not part of your group it’s difficult for the other players to fully understand it and to know how to react.
“But there’s been an acceptance we have to make the best of the situation; the atmosphere within the group has been very good in the last couple of weeks. I can’t look you in the eye and say it’s brought us closer together, but, sometimes, these things can unify you in a way you didn’t know possible.”