Let’s not sugarcoat this. Losing Alexander Isak would be a massive blow to Newcastle. No one wanted the summer to play out this way, and no one wanted to see the Magpies’ star performer heading to Liverpool. The deal is not done yet, of course, but with Luis Diaz on the verge of joining Bayern Munich in a €75m deal that will enable Liverpool to bid in excess of £120m for Isak, there is an increasing air of inevitability about how this will play out. It certainly feels like Newcastle’s worst fears are about to be realised.
So, losing Isak would be a massive setback. But would it be terminal to Newcastle’s chances of having a successful season next term? Or of continuing to make progress, both domestically and in Europe, over the course of the next few years? Not necessarily. Ambitious clubs have sold key players before and not collapsed.
Take Liverpool themselves, for example. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when Philipe Coutinho was sold to Barcelona for £142m, but the money raised funded the purchase of Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk, sparking an upturn that saw the Reds win the Champions League and Premier League over the course of the next two seasons. Sir Alex Ferguson was a master at knowing when to sell star performers – Mark Hughes and Paul Ince in 1995, Jaap Stam in 2001, David Beckham in 2003, Roy Keane in 2005 – and Manchester United hardly imploded when supposedly irreplaceable players departed.
Losing key men is even more common on the continent, where leagues often have one dominant force towering over other clubs, who accept that cashing in every now and then must be a key part of their business model. Napoli sold Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, widely considered to be the world’s best winger, to Paris St Germain in January. Five months later, they were crowned Serie A champions. Bayer Leverkusen finished second in the Bundesliga last season, yet have already sold Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong and Jonathan Tah this summer. Eintracht Frankfurt were third and have just sold Hugo Ekitike.
Admittedly, in almost all those cases, the player in question headed abroad, which makes the loss of a star performer easier to stomach for the fans. Losing Isak to Liverpool just four months after Newcastle beat Arne Slot’s side in the Carabao Cup final will be an especially tough one for supporters to take, and strengthening a direct rival is far from ideal from a club perspective either.
READ MORE:
Even so, the general theme still holds. Selling a star player need not be a disaster. The bigger problem for Newcastle is that it only makes any kind of sense if you’re able to reinvest the money wisely to improve both the current squad and long-term prospects of the club. That requires a razor-sharp recruitment policy led by a decisive, well-connected sporting director, supported by world-class data analysts, scouts and negotiators. Ideally, you’d have targets nailed down and deals effectively agreed long before it becomes apparent that one of your star performers is leaving.
Does any of that sound like Newcastle? Not exactly. And that’s why selling Isak could prove to be a massive negative. Not because the Magpies would be selling their star striker. But rather because it would be impossible to have any faith in those tasked with reinvesting the money. No sporting director. An outgoing chief executive. Deals being negotiated by the assistant head of first-team recruitment. An ownership group whose interests are spread so wide that Newcastle United often seems to be an afterthought rather than an all-consuming passion.
Does that sound like a world-class operation that has been thinking months ahead and planning for all eventualities? Or does it sound like the kind of muddled set-up that would miss out on James Trafford because they were unwilling to meet Burnley’s demands at a time when Manchester City were not interested in the goalkeeper, only to finally agree to stump up the money at a point when City had decided that, actually, they’d quite like a new keeper and had a handy buyback clause that would enable them to gazump Newcastle?
If Isak leaves, those currently running Newcastle have to get their next moves right. Secure a top-class replacement. Maybe Benjamin Sesko. Bring in another striker to replace Callum Wilson. Perhaps Yoane Wissa. Use the additional PSR headroom to sign the elite centre-half you’ve been talking about for ages. Maybe a new keeper too. Think strategically and make another couple of signings that could add real value.
It’s not an impossible challenge. Although, at the moment, it’s also not one that the current hierarchy have shown they are capable of adequately performing.