Alan Pardew believes Alexander Isak's 'head has been turned' following his exclusion from Newcastle United's squad on Saturday
Eddie Howe made the decision to send Alexander Isak home from Scotland on Saturday to protect the Newcastle United star from what could have been an awkward afternoon.
The endless speculation about Alexander Isak's future is annoying enough for Newcastle fans, so we can't even imagine how it must be for the player himself. We're sure he's trying his best to ignore it all, but it's all so loud that it's likely impossible. His agent won't be making it easy either, as he'll be chasing the next big payday.
Had Alexander Isak sat in the stands at Celtic Park on Saturday, it would have been open season for the media to bombard him with questions that would have done him, and Newcastle, no favours at all.
We absolutely back Eddie Howe's decision to do what he did, and so too did former Newcastle boss Alan Pardew, who discussed the move on TalkSPORT.
Alan Pardew believes Newcastle have a battle on their hands
However, the ex-Newcastle gaffer also went on to suggest that Isak's head had been turned and that things could get difficult for Newcastle.
“Reading between the lines, it looks very much like the player’s affected, I would suggest. So, Eddie made a sensible move and just took it out of the equation.
“When players want to move they make it fundamentally clear in their actions and can cause a problem. Has Isak’s head been turned? I would suggest possibly yes, so they’ve got a battle on there. Eddie’s trying to play it down but it won’t go away until Liverpool conduct their business.”
£200 million move to Al-Hilal with a loan back to Newcastle for a season, anyone?
Liverpool are close to tying up a deal for Hugo Ekitike, which should take the pressure off Isak, but this coming week is going to be very telling.
Newcastle head off to Singapore later this wee,k and all eyes will be on whether or not Isak is on that plane. If he isn't prominently featured in any of the images put out by the club, prepare for a social media meltdown.
We have tried not to let all of this speculation divert us from our stance that Isak is staying put, but it's getting harder and harder each day to maintain that position. We're still fairly confident, but we will say this - if we do end up selling Isak this summer, it had better be to a team abroad.
Ideally, we should just let Al-Hilal take him for £200 million and then loan him back to us for a season. Of course, there'd be uproar, but we'd not be doing anything wrong, so the other clubs could cry about it all they want. In fact, why don't we just sell ourselves a nice car park while we're on?
