Eddie Howe hits the nail on the head when discussing Alexander Isak's recent form for Newcastle United

Alexander Isak has now officially had his best goal-scoring return for Newcastle United this season, with four games to go, after he hit his 26th goal of the season on Saturday from the penalty spot against Ipswich Town.

Despite Newcastle's dominance on the pitch yesterday, and the insane amount of crosses that were floated into the Ipswich box, the Magpies actually had very few chances at goal and our prolific centre-forward missed a couple of chances you'd usually expect him to put away.

That's been a theme of late with Isak either missing chances or simply not getting enough of them as teams have moved to mark him out of the game.

It's something Eddie Howe has noticed, but when talking about Isak's recent form, Howe did bring up the most important thing that is the main thing fans care about.

Eddie Howe praised Alexander Isak as he keeps scoring despite below average performances

Speaking to the media (via The Shields Gazette), Howe pointed out that Isak is still finding his name on the scoresheet despite not necessarily playing that well.

“Well, I think, yeah, in part, Ipswich's game plan would have been to stop Alex today. So I think the reducing of space, the low defensive line, does limit his ability to bring his main strengths to the game.

“Of course, as a team, then we still need to find a way to get him into the game. And I felt we did. And I felt he did. I felt he improved as the game went on.

“Possibly not [playing his best football] but I think that's the same with any player. There'll be little peaks and troughs.

“The most important thing is, throughout the season, that he's still contributing and scoring massive goals for us. And we back him to rediscover that, we're talking one or two percent back into his game, very quickly.”

Alexander Isak has Arsenal on the horizon; he usually turns up for them

The fact that Isak can be fairly anonymous for the entire game and still find his name on the scoresheet is what makes him an elite striker.

Obviously, we'd all love to see him on the ball more as the more touches he gets, the more chances he can create, but the rest of the team are stepping up to get goals too.

It'll click again for Isak, hopefully in the remaining games, and he'll start scoring for fun again. He's got Arsenal coming up, he likes scoring against them.