This time, Jamie Carragher and Paul Scholes are taking turns mocking Alexander Isak for ‘leaving’ Newcastle United.
This latest absurdity occurred on the Overlap, when three former Liverpool and Manchester United players interacted with a crowd of fans from various clubs.
Both Jamie Redknapp and Paul Scholes have mocked the possibility of Alexander Isak joining Arsenal this summer.
However, he went on to discuss how Newcastle United’s striker could/should leave St James’ Park for Liverpool or Real Madrid instead.
Perhaps it is because Alexander Isak is ours that the disdain from so many journalists, commentators, ex-players, and others looks unending, as they are plainly keen to see Newcastle United lose their greatest player.
Just a thought or two.
Perhaps Paul Scholes should be more concerned that Manchester United now has so few players that anyone would want, at any price.
Maybe Jamie Carragher should be more concerned that Mo Salah, Virgil Van Dijk, and Trent Alexander-Arnold are still refusing to sign new Liverpool contracts and will depart the club on June 30, 2025.
Why not have a heated conversation about which clubs Liverpool’s top three players are expected to join? For nothing.
In comparison, when Alexander Isak’s current Newcastle United deal expires on June 30, 2025, he will still have three years remaining. According to popular reports, the club intends to extend those three years further this summer.
Newcastle United will be under no rush to trade Alexander Isak this summer, especially given his contract situation.
Isak himself has provided zero impetus to the never-ending media speculation about his future; every time he speaks, he expresses his love for the region, the supporters, the manager, and the club, never indicating a desire to leave in any way.
Since Eddie Howe and these Newcastle United owners arrived almost 40 months ago, not a single first-choice player has been sold. Never mind the high-quality important players, certainly not the absolute finest.
Newcastle United has successfully negotiated on new extended upgraded contracts with Bruno Guimaraes, Joelinton, Anthony Gordon, and others during the last year.
Even though they will still have three years on their contracts at the end of June, I am convinced that both Sandro Tonali and Alexander Isak will agree to extend their current contracts.
PSR and Newcastle United are frequently mentioned, and part of this is justified.
However, there are two things.
First and foremost, PSR applies to all clubs! It is not solely a Newcastle United concern. Some clubs clearly still receive considerably bigger income than NUFC, but even some of those are in pretty awful positions in terms of PSR as things stand, especially the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United.
Second, Newcastle United has completed the most difficult part of the PSR process. Newcastle have constructed a tremendously good competitive team, partly owing to the signings of Gordon, Isak, Tonali, Hall, Bruno, and others. As a result, no serious first-team challengers have been added in the last three transfer windows, and potential young squad players Minteh and Anderson have had to be transferred in order to continue with PSR.
However, their sales were comparable to Kelly and Almiron’s last month. Have substantially set Newcastle United up to buy this summer rather than sell their finest players.
Having managed to get these really tricky last three windows without selling any of the first eleven, never mind the key top quality players, why should anybody think that now Newcastle United wouldn’t be able to hold onto their very best players AND add to them?
Newcastle United are top six and competing for a Champions League place.
They have the best winning form of any Premier League club having won 12 of their last 14 matches in all competitions, plus are in one cup final already and have a winnable home draw in the last 16 of the FA Cup.
Eddie Howe deserves the highest possible credit for so brilliantly guiding United through such a difficult period, which included a season which was the very worst in the club’s entire history for injuries (as well as Tonali’s ten month suspension).
Newcastle United are in an increasingly strong position and the likes of Jamie Carragher and Paul Scholes (and the rest) should be talking about who Eddie Howe could be adding this summer to the likes of Isak, Tonali, Livramento, Pope, Hall, Joelinton, Bruno, Gordon and Botman. Rather than this determination to try and destabilise United and endless dreaming of Eddie Howe losing his best players.
