'Newcastle are ahead of them': Peter Crouch puts Rio Ferdinand in his place in discussion about Magpies star

In the past we'd have kicked this kind of story off with something like "Newcastle United face a battle to keep hold of <insert top player's name here>", but the club seems to be in such a good place right now that it genuinely feels like we'll have very little problem convincing our stars to stay.

Of course, there will be persistent links and conversations about which clubs can poach which of our players, but while everybody's biggest worry is whether we can keep hold of Alexander Isak, the reality is it would take something monumental to make that happen.

Newcastle are very aware of his value, and as such, have slapped a £150 million valuation on him, but that would only be enough to get a prospective buyer to the table, and the price would likely go up from there, and there are very few clubs, if any who can afford to do that kind of business these days thanks to PSR.

Isak's contract still has three years to run so there's no rush to sell, or even renew his deal, although the latter is likely to happen this summer, and then there's the fact that Newcastle's chairman, Yasir Al-Rumayyan has told the board to not even entertain any bids for the star striker.

Alexander Isak isn't going anywhere but the conversation won't stop

As we say, though, none of this will stop the conversations, particularly as pundits make a case for their club to be his next destination, like Peter Crouch and Rio Ferdinand have been doing on Rio's podcast with Crouch saying it would be pointless for Isak to move anywhere other than Arsenal or Liverpool.

“With that decision that Isak’s got, if he goes to Arsenal or Liverpool, like he’s in the conversation.

“If he goes anywhere else, what is the point?”

That prompted Rio Ferdinand to pop up with a comment suggesting he could move to Manchester United as they are a 'big club', and Peter Crouch's response was beautiful.

Newcastle are well ahead of Manchester United right now in terms of being a desirable club to be at

Crouchy wasted no time in putting Rio in his place.

“Huge club, but Newcastle are ahead of them in my opinion.”

A very quick glance at the Premier League table would confirm that very statement, and while there's no clear metric on what makes a 'big club', you can't deny that Manchester Untied are one, but a lot of that now is built on a legacy that they are absolutely nowhere near these days.

Their new stadium might keep them ticking over in that 'big club' group, but if matters on the pitch don't improve soon, a whole generation of football fans are going to wonder what the actual big deal is about Man United ... and we are absolutely here for it.