Rayvin

Hard to know which way to go with it though - bridge building or some sort of statement about the club over all other considerations? If the fans do turn on Isak then we're doing his agent's job for him - that's the only thing I'm struggling with a little.

Sky must be absolutely creaming themselves over this game I'd imagine we might even get a mention in the build up this time. 50% Liverpool, 5% us, 45% Man Utd.

Is that real? If that's real then he needs to pipe the fuck down and stay out of it - the last thing we need is the rest of the squad getting dragged into this noise. EDIT - Ok thank fuck

I agree with your post about the three things that need to happen tbh, all I'm really saying is that whether he hands it in or not, doesn't mean 2 and 3 happen - so I can see from his point of view why that represents a risk. But yes, it's all down to money in the end.

About £15m better off. Beyond that I'm not sure it really changes our underlying position Which I suppose means that there's really no incentive for him to do it.

Agreed It would be complete bullshit but it is about the only spin I can think of that might stick.

The club seems to think the situation is recoverable - I think he would need to commit himself again via a new contract and the sacking of his agent though. The one thing I do think is pertinent is that so far he could claim this entire feud has been between him and the executive, not the team or the fans. If he sticks to that line, he might just about get away with it should the club try to rehabilitate him - especially when the new CEO/DOF start.

Aye - as you say, worth noting that there's no particular reason that Sky should have the inside track on this so who knows what the reality is.

Sky discussed this and concluded that the issue is we can't offer him the amount he wants - maybe we had enough of a conversation for that to be clear.

Really good, compassionate statement that opens the door to recover the situation and makes us look dignified. Well played IMO.

Wykiki will be kicking himself that he went to bed and missed the finale...

Superb.

I'd only be apologising for the inevitable hate crimes, everything beneath that would be fair game

I'd be sorely tempted to respond with "Newcastle United can confirm that they have not received a transfer request from Alexander Isak" and leave it there.

This but I suppose it depends on how the club sees the situation concerning the impact on our reputation too. Ideally though yes, we don't respond and just keep fining him until he crawls back looking for a resolution.

This. So fucking what if he had to wait one more year for a new deal for fuck sake - did we not try to offer him one in March in the end but he shot us down? All this for missing 6 months on a higher salary?

Surely this amounts to a forfeit of the loyalty bonus mind aye, was thinking that myself

I'm not desperate to believe him, I just don't know why he'd hang himself out to dry like this if it wasn't the truth. I mean look at this thread, he's getting fucking pelters - it'll be like that all over the shop. He's already been getting pelters for how he's handled this. It just seems like he's absolutely committed to being a lightning rod for all the negative madness around this. I can take or leave whether my interpretation is true, I just don't see any sense in his statement if this all started happening in the past 5 weeks. The contract thing we knew about from long before this, I might add. We knew the club had turned him down for a contract at the start of last season - there were even reports of Howe having to get players settled again - which sounds like it would have been Isak. The point I'm trying to make that maybe isn't coming across here is that even if his version is true, it makes him no less of a cunt. It's still been handled disgracefully and unprofessionally. It's just that it also means Liverpool were just being opportunistic. We'll know in the end I suppose if they come back with another bid. If they do, I'm inclined to agree with you. If they don't, or we reach out to them, then I think Isak was likely telling the truth here.

I do want to set out that I agree with everyone else - he doesn't leave for less than 150m and he's fined into oblivion in the meantime. Whatever he was promised, this has been a shitshow. Moreover, he could have been a fucking man about it and signed a new deal with us this summer anyway - and given that Mitchell is gone, who is it exactly that he has lost trust with?

So the narrative against Liverpool is they've unsettled him this summer, specifically in the past 5 weeks. If Isak is claiming that he's been 'unsettled' for a year because of something that happened internally, then he is saying that their actions in the past 5 weeks had nothing to do with his decision. If anything, it feels more likely that he would have reached out to them rather than the other way around, given how he's framing it.

Where are you reading that I feel bad for him? I don't at all. I'm saying that he seems by his own words to have just announced that this is all on him. So I'm just sort of taking him at his word on this because ultimately I don't see why he would be trying to absolve Liverpool of any blame in this especially when it doesn't seem that they're going to come and rescue him after all.

I mean he may well have spoken with them but my point is more it seems to be at his behest. If it's not that, why the fuck is he falling on his sword for Liverpool?

I have absolutely no love for them either, but what I really mean here is that this appears to all be on Isak according to his own words. They inquired about him, we knocked them back. He then threw his toys out of the pram and it appears to be less about them unsettling him and more about him unsettling everyone else. He's been stropping on for a year about this contract it would seem, he's essentially just said so himself. It doesn't sound like they needed to do any head turning, he was just done all on his own. It would also explain why Liverpool ridiculously signed Ekitike from under our noses, because it suggests that they actually took us at our word that we weren't selling him. And then they come back again because they think ok, Isak is kicking off now, maybe Newcastle want out of this. So I reckon they are indeed not coming back into the picture now unless we go and get them. For me, this is all on Isak and Mitchell. They've between the two of them made a laughing stock of the whole club this summer. Mitchell has paid for it already, but Isak needs to be kept in reserves until he realises that whatever promises were made, we are not obligated to give him a new deal at any point. He can consider that broken trust, but he can't unilaterally do anything to change that.

So he was promised a new contract, Mitchell said no, Isak turned around and said this was his last season with us as a result. The club presumably didn't agree to it but 'his position was made clear' nonetheless. And then here we are. It also some of absolves Liverpool tbf to them, at least somewhat - this is Isak essentially putting himself at the centre of the entire storm. They didn't tap him up according to this, he was in his mind always leaving.

It's way too vague to just be his own words, that's had an eye cast over it by a professional of some sort. 'Promises made' could mean anything really but the likelihood is it's in reference to his contract rather than some notion that we said he could leave. I don't know why we'd have promised that in private and then been saying the exact opposite in public.