Isak’s Return to St James’ Park

When Liverpool’s team bus turns a corner and approaches the narrow access road behind Newcastle’s Milburn Stand, Alexander Isak will know there are no hiding places. The short climb up the painted steps to the players’ entrance at St James’ Park is a daunting prospect, especially considering the hostile atmosphere that awaits him.

Source: i.guim.co.uk

Isak, who spent most of last summer staging a form of unilateral industrial action to force a £125m move from Tyneside to Merseyside, must navigate a human chicane of once-familiar club staff stationed along the route to the away dressing room. The tension will be palpable as he attempts to avoid eye contact with those who remember his departure.

Source: i.guim.co.uk

The latest meeting between Newcastle and Liverpool will take place against the backdrop of an outpouring of love for Kevin Keegan, following his death in July. The pitch that was once Isak’s playground will be surrounded by tributes to a player and manager revered and adored by both clubs.

Despite scoring 54 goals in 86 Premier League appearances for Newcastle, including the decisive goal in their 2025 Carabao Cup final triumph against Liverpool at Wembley, Isak’s north-east legacy is very different. He can expect to feel the more feral side of the home crowd’s emotional power as they recall that, on the evening of 25 August last year, he remained locked inside his rented mansion in Northumberland. Barely 10 miles south, Newcastle lost 3-2 to Liverpool. By 1 September, Isak was shaking hands with Arne Slot and Mohamed Salah at Anfield.

His old friends on Tyneside would be haunted by images of ‘a man who wasn’t there’ throughout a season when Newcastle finished a disappointing 12th in the league. Similarly, Isak’s less-than-ideal preparation during a summer when he skipped Newcastle’s pre-season tour of south east Asia ensured that he became a shadow of the striker Slot craved, let alone the teammate an ageing Salah needed. Granted, the broken leg he sustained in December further disrupted that maiden Liverpool campaign, but several parties involved in this most protracted and painful transfer lost an awful lot.

With Slot and Salah gone, Isak must now win over a new head coach in Andoni Iraola as he strives to recapture that extraordinary ability to glide gazelle-like across the pitch before sending a series of often first-time shots from sometimes improbable angles beyond assorted goalkeepers. Part of that imperious ability can be attributed to three years of stellar coaching as Eddie Howe refined the former Real Sociedad striker’s game to the point where even the very best defenders found Isak to be unplayable.

There were other occasions when he drifted to the margins rather than through the lines, and odd games when mysterious niggles sidelined him. But, until last July, the quiet 26-year-old appeared an unlikely rebel. Howe perhaps underestimated the immense determination of a player whose reserved demeanour he possibly mistook for malleability.

Isak certainly blindsided Newcastle when on 19 August last year he upstaged Salah at the Professional Football Association awards. The striker was a no-show at the ceremony and as the Egyptian collected his player of the year trophy, the audience were distracted by a barrage of vibrating phones. An Instagram message from Isak had accused Newcastle of breaking pledges to sell him. ‘When promises are broken and trust is lost, the relationship can’t continue,’ he posted.

As Howe denied offering a striker deeply disappointed not to be awarded a pay rise in 2024 an exit strategy, the club’s ownership appeared anxious to avoid the loss of face involved in permitting Liverpool to poach their prize possession. Newcastle’s oft-reiterated message was that Isak would eventually be ‘reintegrated’ but things changed on the afternoon of 25 August when a delegation featuring senior figures from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) visited Isak’s home in well-heeled Darras Hall for conciliation talks.

They departed without any rapprochement and five days later the Germany forward Nick Woltemade joined Newcastle from Stuttgart for £69m. Forty-eight hours on, Isak was a Liverpool player, leaving Newcastle’s dressing room divided between those sympathetic to his decision to in effect go on strike and others, most notably Bruno Guimarães, who were outraged.

By then Hugo Ekitiké had also moved to Anfield for £69m from Eintracht Frankfurt. The French forward had been a long-term Howe target and the enduring puzzle about ‘Isakgate’ is why Newcastle, then struggling to comply with football’s spending rules, did not sell Isak to Liverpool earlier in the summer, when Slot would subsequently have been unlikely to move for Ekitiké. Matters were complicated by Newcastle’s then outgoing chief executive, Darren Eales, being absent on medical leave and the lack of a sporting director after Paul Mitchell’s departure following a power struggle with Howe.

This vacuum promoted the manager’s nephew, Andy Howe, into a senior recruitment role as Newcastle reinvested £55m of the Isak money on Brentford’s Yoane Wissa. While knee trouble derailed Wissa’s season, Howe senior struggled to marry Woltemade’s talent to his tactics and the 24-year-old ended a dispiriting campaign failing to convince in central midfield. By then, Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Guimarães were feeling disillusioned and also wanted out of St James’ Park. Having breached Uefa spending rules, Newcastle also needed to sell.

It all dictates that Isak is returning to a much-altered club at a moment when he needs to remind Liverpool precisely why so much drama was involved in him becoming the most expensive player in Premier League history.

Isak’s Challenge Ahead

Isak must now win over a new head coach in Andoni Iraola as he strives to recapture that extraordinary ability to glide gazelle-like across the pitch before sending a series of often first-time shots from sometimes improbable angles beyond assorted goalkeepers.

With three years of stellar coaching under Eddie Howe, Isak refined his game to the point where even the very best defenders found him to be unplayable. However, the quiet 26-year-old appeared an unlikely rebel until last July, when he upstaged Mohamed Salah at the Professional Football Association awards.

Isak’s less-than-ideal preparation during a summer when he skipped Newcastle’s pre-season tour of south east Asia ensured that he became a shadow of the striker Arne Slot craved, let alone the teammate an ageing Salah needed. Granted, the broken leg he sustained in December further disrupted that maiden Liverpool campaign, but several parties involved in this most protracted and painful transfer lost an awful lot.

Isak’s north-east legacy is very different from his goalscoring exploits for Newcastle. He can expect to feel the more feral side of the home crowd’s emotional power as they recall that, on the evening of 25 August last year, he remained locked inside his rented mansion in Northumberland. Barely 10 miles south, Newcastle lost 3-2 to Liverpool. By 1 September, Isak was shaking hands with Arne Slot and Mohamed Salah at Anfield.