Danny Murphy makes bizarre claim about Newcastle United striker Alexander Isak on Match of the Day

 · January 26 2025, 10:25
Danny Murphy makes bizarre claim about Newcastle United striker Alexander Isak on Match of the Day
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Newcastle United's 3-1 over Southampton was relegated to game five of six on Match of the Day last night with Alan Shearer and Danny Murphy joining Gary Lineker in the studio.

The post-most highlights analysis, led by Alan Shearer focussed heavily on Alexander Isak who bagged two goals in the win down at St Mary's.

It wasn't just his goals that caught the eye, though, with Shearer going out of his way to draw attention to Isak's movement in and around the area and his ability to bring the ball under his spell.

Obviously, there was a lot of focus on that sublime first touch before he finished for his second of the game, too, with Shearer telling kids to watch his technique and learn from it.

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Then, as his sign-off for the piece, Shearer said.

"I now think there's three world-class forwards in the Premier League now. [Erling] Haaland being one, [Mo] Salah being another and I think Isak has played himself into that company now."

This prompted Danny Murphy to pour cold water on the idea saying that he has world-class ability but to call him a world-class player he needs to do it for longer, a sentiment which which Lineker agreed before swiftly moving on.

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To play Devil's advocate for a minute, I can see what Murphy means when he says this, but he's lumped him in with Erling Haaland who, yes, scores goals for fun and has been doing so in the Bundesliga and did it in the Premier League without any time to adapt, but beyond sticking the ball in the net, he has very little else.

Isak has everything to his game, much like Mo Salah, so the fact that it's only really just started clicking for him at Newcastle is more down to the team understanding him more. He's always been world-class, but he isn't a one-man team, and in truth, even when he wasn't scoring in every game, he was a menace, but a menace starved for service.

If we were talking about Isak being world-class after scoring in three successive games out of the blue, then I'd agree with Murphy, but the man has 54 goals and nine assists in 92 appearances, he's averaging a goal every 123 minutes, that's one minute fewer than Harry Kane's record at Tottenham and people are always saying he's world-class.

Alexander Isak is world-class. Alan Shearer was right.

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