Alexander Isak - International C*nt

[Theregulars]

1 minute ago, OverThere said:

Yes because once we have an alternative we are not in this precarious position. We can afford to be a bit more hard ball and say ok sit on the pine. At present there is no one else to play in that position.

Sure, but honestly I don’t think it makes a huge difference if his current stance is I want to leave and don’t want to play. I think it strengthens our hand in that we aren’t totally fucked if he doesn’t play, but we can stick him on the bench regardless of Wissa being here. Which he isn’t.

[Paully]

5 minutes ago, kingxlnc said:

Whatever the case may be - if he's staying, top up his salary to 180 or 200k so he's on it this season. Even a 1 or 2 year extension. 

Release clause of £180m in PL, £150m outside

 

More than reasonable. 

No way in the world we should be topping up his salary - he’s acted like a twat and disrespected Eddie, his team mates and our fans.

 

Get two in and get rid of him. 

[TRon]

19 minutes ago, KennyUtd said:

Being attached to players is nothing new mind. As for local pride, that's very important imo. We're not a club that's followed by fans from all over the world. Majority of our fans are local or at least have a Newcastle connection that brings them back to games. Wouldn't want to change that, ever.

 

I agree, and Isak is one of the best strikers I've seen playing for us in our lifetime. But you have to learn to detach yourself from it, we've seen our superstars leave forever, including local heroes like Waddle, Beardsley and Gascoigne. They all left to earn more money and to join bigger clubs. 

 

There's no point in getting too wound up over it. If we can get another season out of him and he gives his all, that would be a win for me. Unless we get an adequate replacement I don't really see past that at the moment. 

[nwopnufc]

1 minute ago, Paully said:

No way in the world we should be topping up his salary - he’s acted like a twat and disrespected Eddie, his team mates and our fans.

 

Get two in and get rid of him. 

Easier said than done, as proved over the last few weeks 

[Theregulars]

1 minute ago, TRon said:

 

I agree, and Isak is one of the best strikers I've seen playing for us in our lifetime. But you have to learn to detach yourself from it, we've seen our superstars leave forever, including local heroes like Waddle, Beardsley and Gascoigne. They all left to earn more money and to join bigger clubs. 

 

There's no point in getting too wound up over it. If we can get another season out of him and he gives his all, that would be a win for me. Unless we get an adequate replacement I don't really see past that at the moment. 

Completely agree. 

[PauloGeordio]

4 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

I agree, and Isak is one of the best strikers I've seen playing for us in our lifetime. But you have to learn to detach yourself from it, we've seen our superstars leave forever, including local heroes like Waddle, Beardsley and Gascoigne. They all left to earn more money and to join bigger clubs. 

 

There's no point in getting too wound up over it. If we can get another season out of him and he gives his all, that would be a win for me. Unless we get an adequate replacement I don't really see past that at the moment. 

[Jimburst]

50 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

He owes us doing his job on the contract he's agreed to.

 

If he does that then we'll give him another chance I imagine. Might not celebrate the first few goals that much but I'll learn to accept him at some point. 

 

 

 

 

How so? I don't owe my work the 3 years I signed up to, I'll leave when I want, especially if someone else will pay me more.

[healthyaddiction]

1 minute ago, Jimburst said:

 

How so? I don't owe my work the 3 years I signed up to, I'll leave when I want, especially if someone else will pay me more.

Are you a footballer?

[Zero]

You can’t give him new contract now. At least after he is back to the team and play for at least 6 months. That’s the very least.

 

And I agree with the detachment argument. In short, if we want to be a big club, then both the club and the fans have to act like a big club. 

[Wullie]

If the club really wanted to keep him when he started making waves, surely the way to do it was to make a couple more big first team signings with our supposed PSR leeway that we've built up and convince him that he can achieve his career dreams here, or at least some of them. 

 

When this first started a few weeks ago it felt like he was trying to escape a club that was going places after Elanga joined but it doesn't feel like that now, we are in no way prepared for the coming season and I'm now starting to feel a bit like who can blame him?

[KennyUtd]

26 minutes ago, Wullie said:

 

No and I'm not advocating we adopt some sort of entirely dispassionate approach to the club's history etc but I think, for example, putting out that video in the Irish Centre where Isak calls Asprilla over, to the tune of Local Hero, when the club was apparently fully aware that he would want away this summer, I'm aghast that was given the green light. That was like a month ago FFS.

That's fair. With hindsight we've had a shocker with that.

He did agree to it too of course. Very weird.

 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2025 by KennyUtd

[Wandy]

16 hours ago, et tu brute said:

Doesn't matter that the ultra biased media keep reporting Liverpool's agenda. We hold the players contract and it's up to us what happens. He will still be here in a months time; and if he isn't, it's due to us getting two replacements of the required quality standard and then that our valuation has been met to the penny.

 

 

I love your optimism, but I think you are going to be the angriest and most disappointed person on this forum, come September 1st. And God help you if Sunlun are above us in the league at that point. 

 

All the indications are that we are currently acting weak as piss in this situation, and are being played like a fiddle. Isak should have been told weeks ago he is going nowhere and that would have been the end of it. The fact that he hasn't though is the most glaring clue that we are going to be letting him go, and I bet it's closer to £100m than the £150m. We are currently being cuckolded beyond belief.

[Jimburst]

55 minutes ago, Wullie said:

 

One thing that this whole rather sad affair has made me think about is that the club could really do with pulling back on all the nostalgia and local pride stuff, thinking particularly of all the kit reveal videos, as depressing as that is. In a PSR era, and when you're actually trying to compete at the top level with other clubs who operate like ruthless corporate machines, it's actually detrimental for fans to become so attached to the players. It's become obvious to me that it makes player trading much more difficult.

 

It's a fair point but I think we should be more than capable (as adults) of enjoying moments with players and accepting they have ambitions and don't think of Newcastle the way we do.

 

Obviously we love the ones that seem to get it more than the ones that don't, but I'm still capable of looking back on Isak's goals with fondness. He's class, he was loving it, so were we. He fancies a new challenge, crack on. Shame he's made a mis-step but I think he probably regrets everything now too. Mis-calculation. Stain on the rep.

 

The mems are still good for me.

[OverThere]

7 minutes ago, Jimburst said:

 

How so? I don't owe my work the 3 years I signed up to, I'll leave when I want, especially if someone else will pay me more.

Yeah but your contract likely gives 1 months notice and you can be made redundant. Isak has a 3 year guaranteed contract. Completely different.

[Jimburst]

5 minutes ago, healthyaddiction said:

Are you a footballer?

 

No, does it matter though? People are talking about employment contracts as if they're not things that are mutually terminated all the time. You can't make people work, no matter what the job (excepting the army, which is morally shite and footballers are certainly not soldiers).

[Nobody]

5 minutes ago, Wullie said:

If the club really wanted to keep him when he started making waves, surely the way to do it was to make a couple more big first team signings with our supposed PSR leeway that we've built up and convince him that he can achieve his career dreams here, or at least some of them. 

 

When this first started a few weeks ago it felt like he was trying to escape a club that was going places after Elanga joined but it doesn't feel like that now, we are in no way prepared for the coming season and I'm now starting to feel a bit like who can blame him?

Looks to me though like he caught the club completely off guard, and his behaviour has derailed our entire summer. We've had to shift our focus entirely to trying to find a top class striker, which we've obviously failed miserably at doing. 

I doubt our summer would have been remotely similar to this had he not thrown his toys out of the pram. 

[Yorkie]

And our PSR leeway has counted for absolutely fuck all anyway.

[Minhosa]

4 minutes ago, Wullie said:

If the club really wanted to keep him when he started making waves, surely the way to do it was to make a couple more big first team signings with our supposed PSR leeway that we've built up and convince him that he can achieve his career dreams here, or at least some of them. 

 

When this first started a few weeks ago it felt like he was trying to escape a club that was going places after Elanga joined but it doesn't feel like that now, we are in no way prepared for the coming season and I'm now starting to feel a bit like who can blame him?

The only sympathy I have for him is that we've made it clear for a while that we value him at circa £150m levels which is superstar money.

 

Yet we haven't been paying him superstar wages.

 

I'm not sure you can have one without the other and I suspect thats what him and his agent were talking to the club about before Mitchell arrived and shitcanned any goodwill into the long grass.

 

His behaviour since that rebuttal from the baldy bouncer has been fucking diabolical though so my sympathy starts to run out pretty quickly.

 

It does raise the wider question of our model of buying from that tier below elite level; What happens when they get really fucking good and we can't afford to pay them what the Legacy 6 will?

 

I presume, at that point, we needed to have been proactive during the players upward curve in performances and try to offer them as good as possible terms with ambitious release clauses - something which would have resolved this Isak thing last year in all likelihood.

 

 

[Jimburst]

1 minute ago, OverThere said:

Yeah but your contract likely gives 1 months notice and you can be made redundant. Isak has a 3 year guaranteed contract. Completely different.

 

I don't really get the point of this discussion. You're actually annoyed at him because of contract law? Or are you annoyed because you feel betrayed by a footballer you liked?

 

The contract doesn't come into it for me. It's about loyalty, decorum etc which I think are fair enough sticks to beat him with.

[Minhosa]

1 minute ago, Yorkie said:

And our PSR leeway has counted for absolutely fuck all anyway.

Yep - same with the much-heralded Champions League qualification.

 

Because, you can bet your bottom dollar, that if we'd narrowly missed out on the CL, the whole fucking world would have been saying 'Isak wants to play CL' or 'They're not playing at the top level euro competition, so they were always going to struggle to attract top players' and everyone would have swallowed it.

 

All this summer has proven is that players will go where the money is. Full stop. Nothing else matters.

[Wullie]

1 minute ago, Jimburst said:

 

It's a fair point but I think we should be more than capable (as adults) of enjoying moments with players and accepting they have ambitions and don't think of Newcastle the way we do.

 

Obviously we love the ones that seem to get it more than the ones that don't, but I'm still capable of looking back on Isak's goals with fondness. He's class, he was loving it, so were we. He fancies a new challenge, crack on. Shame he's made a mis-step but I think he probably regrets everything now too. Mis-calculation. Stain on the rep.

 

The mems are still good for me.

 

I say this because I'm as much a sucker as anyone for getting attached to players. On a run the other day I went past that shop in Shields that Isak brings the dog out of and it made me just feel really sad.

 

I think the other clubs (and the fans of those clubs) we are now competing with take a much more pragmatic approach to the players now (Chelsea fans can't exactly get attached to the players) and we need to learn it too. I think that's unfortunate tbh but that's the modern game.

[Wullie]

6 minutes ago, Nobody said:

Looks to me though like he caught the club completely off guard, and his behaviour has derailed our entire summer. We've had to shift our focus entirely to trying to find a top class striker, which we've obviously failed miserably at doing. 

I doubt our summer would have been remotely similar to this had he not thrown his toys out of the pram. 

 

That's all fair and it's certainly derailed things but I don't see a Liverpool, Arsenal or Man City allowing themselves to go into a campaign with such a bare bones squad because of a situation with one player. It feels like the club has nobody at the wheel.

[Optimistic Nut]

Off the bench in the Liverpool game to save a 1-1 draw.

 

No idea for which side. 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2025 by Optimistic Nut

[healthyaddiction]

9 minutes ago, Jimburst said:

 

No, does it matter though? People are talking about employment contracts as if they're not things that are mutually terminated all the time. You can't make people work, no matter what the job (excepting the army, which is morally shite and footballers are certainly not soldiers).

Yes, it does matter. Let's not pretend footballers are regular workers. No one owns your registration to work which will be traded for millions of pounds. Sure, Isak can quit and become a brickie though.

[PauloGeordio]

4 minutes ago, Wullie said:

 

I say this because I'm as much a sucker as anyone for getting attached to players. On a run the other day I went past that shop in Shields that Isak brings the dog out of and it made me just feel really sad.

 

I think the other clubs (and the fans of those clubs) we are now competing with take a much more pragmatic approach to the players now (Chelsea fans can't exactly get attached to the players) and we need to learn it too. I think that's unfortunate tbh but that's the modern game.

Isn’t what makes the players fall in love with the club how the fans fall in love with the players. That passion, that emotion.That’s the attachment right there. It’s not just business and winning it’s emotional and personal. It’s love, and when that relationship breaks down or said player decides to leave it hurts!