It speaks to the short-termism – and perhaps short-sightedness – of new England boss Thomas Tuchel that, in 2017, he refused to entertain a teenage Alexander Isak at Borussia Dortmund, going as far as to state he had never heard of him. That was petty. It was also an error of judgement.
The Isak of today is the best striker in the Premier League. If that puts him ahead of Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, which it should on current form, he is possibly the best in the world right now.
Owning such a commodity is both the dream and the dilemma for Newcastle, who identified Isak’s potential and paid Real Sociedad a club-record £63million in the summer of 2022.
How, though, do they now keep him at St James’ Park, especially amid strong interest from Arsenal and the player’s own, explicit ambition? The planet’s best do not play for teams in the bottom half of the Premier League, which a few weeks ago was where Newcastle resided.
A complex situation has a simple solution – give the Swede the platform he needs without having to leave the station. In scoring seven times in his last five league games, Isak has helped take Newcastle from 12th to fifth.
Stay there, or higher, and Champions League football will make the grass already under his feet look a whole lot greener.
Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak is currently the best striker in the Premier League
Owning such a commodity is both the dream and the dilemma for Newcastle amid interest
The planet’s best do not play for teams who are not near the top of the Premier League
To that end, Isak is the master of his own destiny, and that was the point Eddie Howe made when, in late October, Mail Sport broke the story of contract talks not taking place, despite widespread assumption that an improved deal was close.
At the time, he had scored one in seven from the outset of the season. Both injury and doubt were niggling away.
‘If a player is saying he has huge ambitions, he has to be actually doing the business on the pitch – it’s a two-way thing, the challenge is always thrown back,’ said Howe, in a rare but necessary use of a public forum to send a message back to his dressing-room.
‘As a player, you can sit down and say I want to play European football, but you then have to play to that level as well.’
Isak’s response has been 11 goals in 12 games and, if form and fitness pervade, that will almost certainly mean a return to the Champions League for his current club. It would also lessen what has felt like the increasing certainty of him moving on at the end of the season.
His contract expires in 2028 and he is already the top earner, which is why Newcastle’s top brass feel a new deal, including a bumper pay rise, is not necessary. At least not yet.
Offers for Isak are likely to land in any scenario, and it could well be that the hierarchy decide to cash in at a premium.
They are on the record in saying that every player has his price – a truth born out of Profit and Sustainability Rules – but it was an admission that unsettled the likes of Isak and other stars within the squad, leading to concern over the direction of the Saudi-owned club and the speed of the project.
Thomas Tuchel, in 2017, refused to entertain a teenage Isak at Borussia Dortmund
Now he should be put ahead of Erling Haaland as the Premier League’s best striker on form
Isak’s numbers are comparable with Alan Shearer with 42 goals in 60 top flight starts
It would still take a British record fee in excess of the £106.8m Chelsea paid for Enzo Fernandez to get Isak out of Newcastle, and so it should when considering the respective output of the pair.
Howe and the majority of supporters understand the economics at play, but they do not want to lose their liquid-limbed hero, with the gait of a marathon runner and speed of a sprinter. Yes, there is a lightweight frame, but it comes with heavyweight strength, not to mention a knockout finish.
The head coach has an extra connection because he signed Isak, and when he convinces himself of a player’s worth and place in his team, it is not a conviction arrived at easily. Sell to buy is a reality of PSR, but when you’ve already bought the best, what are you striving for?
‘When I saw him, I was instantly taken with his game,’ recalls Howe. ‘I love how he plays and expresses himself. I still enjoy watching him as a manager now.
‘Off the pitch, he is calm, cool, he is what you see on the pitch. He doesn’t get overly emotional, which for a striker is a great quality, because that coolness and calmness in front of goal is part of his personality, part of what he is. He seems to have an extra half a second when other players don’t.
‘With Alex, the beauty of his attitude is that he wants to improve. He has all the ingredients. I need to find the things that can make him better and I can’t stop on his behalf.
‘His game is in a good place at the moment. My job is to not sit back and appreciate that, my job is to try and find areas he can improve, to push him towards that and never stop pushing him.’
Isak should take note of that sentiment. Howe is arguably the greatest improver of players as a coach in the Premier League. He should have been the FA’s No.1 pick ahead of Tuchel. Newcastle smashed Paris Saint-Germain 4-1 last season and three of the scorers, at times, struggled to get a game under former manager Steve Bruce.
The only misstep of the early years of his career was that £8million move to Dortmund
But Dortmund’s loss was Sociedad’s gain and, remarkably, he was sold to there for an £8m fee
Eddie Howe is arguably the greatest improver of players as a coach in the Premier League
The other scorer was Dan Burn. Fly the nest and there is always a chance that, the trajectory of personal betterment that Howe and his backroom deliver, levels out.
Isak turned 25 in September. The next five years of his career should be his best, and that is a scary thought given his 42 Premier League goals so far have come from just 60 starts. His numbers are comparable with Alan Shearer.
Yet, as a player, he is close to incomparable with anyone, and Howe struggled when pushed for a likeness this week. He has nodded along when Thierry Henry was mentioned previously, but the Arsenal legend – albeit still better than Isak – did not have the same elasticity and ball-on-a-string sorcery.
So, what are the ‘ingredients’ the Newcastle boss talks about that make him so unique? If Haaland, Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski are out-and-out strikers best at applying a finish to the work of others, Isak is an in-and-out equivalent who can create chances for himself and team-mates.
He took out eight Everton jerseys with one stupendous, dribbled assist last year, and that clip has been viewed 5.4m times on YouTube, more than any of his goals.
It is as if his feet are double-jointed, so suddenly can he manipulate and manoeuvre a football. Like a fly and its slow-motion vision, he buzzes between bodies without ever being swatted. And that can be traced back to his childhood.
Isak was born in Solna, a suburb of Stockholm, to Eritrean parents who fled civil war in their East African homeland. He was, and is, an intelligent boy. His father was a teacher and mother a carer, and their second son was only ever introduced to football as a means of social engagement and enjoyment.
But there, in the cages close to the block of flats in which he was raised, his talent was obvious. Against older boys, he had to improvise.
The Swedish striker has been compared with Arsenal and French legend Thierry Henry
Inevitably, they labelled him ‘the next Zlatan Ibrahimovic’, but he has always been his own man
So much so, at the age of 14, the coaches of top-flight AIK Solna told Isak and his parents that he needed to concentrate less on flicks and tricks and more on applying his skill to the needs of a professional footballer.
Within two years he was scoring on his senior debut. That made him the youngest scorer in AIK’s history and, a year later, he had the same honour for the Sweden national team, netting at the age of 17 years and three months.
Inevitably, they labelled him ‘the next Zlatan Ibrahimovic’, but Isak has always been his own man. The standout similarity is that neither enjoys such correlation. Watch him every week, though, and there are shades of Henry, Samuel Eto’o and even a bit of Paolo Wanchope – pace, goals and surprise.
The only misstep of those early years was that £8million move to Dortmund – he could have signed for Real Madrid after a FaceTime call and charm offensive from the Brazilian Ronaldo – for in Germany he became a political pawn amid Tuchel’s fallout with the club’s chief scout, Sven Mislintat, and others in the recruitment set-up.
Turns out they actually did have an eye for a player. It led to an apology from Dortmund’s chief executive and, during two-and-a-half seasons, the highlight was a 14-goal loan spell at Willem II in Holland.
But Dortmund’s loss was Sociedad’s gain and, remarkably, he was sold to the Spaniards for the same £8m fee which they had paid to AIK. Had the Bundesliga club cared for him the way they did the likes of Haaland and Jude Bellingham, they could have put a zero on the end of that given time.
Three seasons later and Sociedad had octupled their investment. Newcastle pored over just about every minute of his game-time in La Liga, and there they saw the development of what they believed could be the complete, modern striker.
Sources say Howe became as mesmerised as those defenders by his dribbles, feints and darts. Indeed, there is something alluring about Isak. From his sharp wit off the pitch to even sharper cunning on it, he is the smiling assassin. Everyone has heard of him now.
