The story of how Newcastle’s liquid-limbed goal machine Alexander Isak became football’s hottest property – and the secret to keeping him at the club, writes CRAIG HOPE

It is a testament to the short-term thinking – and perhaps short-sightedness – of New England boss Thomas Tuchel that he refused to entertain a teenage Alexander Isak at Borussia Dortmund in 2017, even going so far as to claim he had never heard of him. That was petty. It was also an error in judgment.

Today’s Isak is the best striker in the Premier League. If that puts him ahead of Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, which on current form it should, then he is possibly the best in the world right now.

Owning such a product is both the dream and the dilemma for Newcastle, who recognized Isak’s potential and paid Real Sociedad a club record £63m in the summer of 2022.

But how do they keep him at St James’ Park, especially amid strong interest from Arsenal and the player’s own stated ambition? The world’s best don’t play for teams in the bottom half of the Premier League, where Newcastle played a few weeks ago.

A complex situation has a simple solution: give the Swede the platform he needs without having to leave the station. By scoring seven times in his last five league games, Isak has helped take Newcastle from 12th to fifth.

Stay there, or higher, and Champions League football will make the grass look a lot greener under his feet.

In that respect Isak is the master of his own destiny, and that was the point Eddie Howe made when Mail Sport broke the story at the end of October that no contract talks were taking place, despite widespread belief that a better deal was close.

At the time, he scored one in seven from the start of the season. Both the injury and the doubt faded away.

‘If a player says he has big ambitions, he has to actually do things on the field. It’s a two-way street, the challenge is always reversed,” Howe said in a rare but necessary use of a public address. forum to send a message back to his dressing room.

‘As a player you can say that I want to play European football, but then you also have to play at that level.’

Isak’s response was eleven goals in twelve games and if form and fitness continues it will almost certainly mean a return to the Champions League for his current club. It would also reduce the growing certainty that he will move on at the end of the season.

His contract expires in 2028 and he is already the top earner. That is why Newcastle’s CEO believes that a new contract, including a huge pay increase, is not necessary. At least not yet.

Bids for Isak are likely to land in either scenario, and the hierarchy could very well decide to cash in at a premium.

They honestly say that every player has his price – a truth that comes from the profit and sustainability rules – but it was an admission that upset the likes of Isak and other stars within the squad, leading to concerns about the direction of the squad . Club in Saudi Arabia and the speed of the project.

It would still take a British record fee higher than the £106.8 million Chelsea paid for Enzo Fernandez to get Isak from Newcastle, and it should if you consider the pair’s respective performances.

Howe and the majority of supporters understand the economics at play, but they don’t want to lose their liquid-limbed hero with the gait of a marathoner and the speed of a sprinter. Yes, there’s a lightweight frame, but it comes with heavyweight, not to mention a knockout finish.

The head coach has an extra connection because he signed Isak, and when he convinces himself of a player’s value and place in his team, it doesn’t just happen. Selling to buy is a reality of PSR, but if you’ve already bought the best, what are you aiming for?

“When I saw him, I was immediately impressed with his play,” Howe recalled. ‘I like the way he plays and expresses himself. I still enjoy watching him as a manager.

‘Off the field he is calm and cool, he is what you see on the field. He doesn’t get overly emotional, which is a great trait for a striker, because that calmness and composure in front of goal is part of his personality, part of who he is. He seems to have an extra half second, while other players don’t.

‘The great thing about his attitude with Alex is that he wants to improve. He has all the ingredients. I have to find the things that can make him better and I can’t stop on his behalf.

“His game is in a good place right now. My job is not to sit back and appreciate that. My job is to try to find areas where he can improve, push him there and never stop pushing him.”

Isak should take note of that sentiment. Howe is perhaps the biggest player improver as a coach in the Premier League. He should have been the FA’s No. 1 ahead of Tuchel. Newcastle beat Paris Saint-Germain 4-1 last season and three of the goalscorers struggled at times to win games under former manager Steve Bruce.

The other goalscorer was Dan Burn. Fly the nest and there’s always a chance that the trajectory of personal improvement that Howe and his backroom deliver will plateau.

Isak turned 25 in September. The next five years of his career should be his best, and that’s a frightening thought considering his 42 Premier League goals so far have come from just 60 starts. His figures are comparable to those of Alan Shearer.

Still, as a player he’s pretty much unlike anyone, and Howe struggled this week when asking for a likeness. He may have nodded along when Thierry Henry was mentioned earlier, but the Arsenal legend – albeit still better than Isak – did not have the same elasticity and ball-on-a-string wizardry.

So, what are the ‘ingredients’ the Newcastle boss talks about that make him so unique? If Haaland, Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski are the best strikers at finishing the work of others, Isak is an in-and-out equivalent who can create chances for himself and his teammates.

Last year he pulled off eight Everton jerseys with one great dribbling assist, and that clip has been viewed 5.4 million times on YouTube, more than all his goals.

It’s as if his feet are double-jointed, so suddenly he can manipulate and maneuver a football. Like a fly and his slow motion vision, he buzzes between bodies without ever being hit. And that goes back to his youth.

Isak was born in Solna, a suburb of Stockholm, to Eritrean parents who fled the civil war in their East African homeland. He was and is an intelligent boy. His father was a teacher and mother a caregiver, and their second son was only introduced to football as a means of social involvement and fun.

But there, in the cages near the apartment building where he grew up, his talent was clearly visible. He had to improvise against older boys.

So much so that at the age of 14, the coaches of top division AIK Solna told Isak and his parents that he should focus less on quick movements and tricks and more on applying his skills to the needs of a professional footballer.

Within two years he was scoring on his senior debut. That made him the youngest goalscorer in AIK’s history and a year later he had the same honor for the Swedish national team, aged seventeen years and three months.

Inevitably they called him ‘the next Zlatan Ibrahimovic’, but Isak has always been his own man. The striking similarity is that neither has such a correlation. Watch it every week though and there are shades of Henry, Samuel Eto’o and even a bit of Paolo Wanchope – pace, goals and surprise.

The only misstep of those early years was an £8million move to Dortmund – he could have signed for Real Madrid after a FaceTime call and a charm offensive from Brazilian Ronaldo – as in Germany he became a political pawn amid Tuchel’s feud with the club’s head scout. , Sven Mislintat and others in the recruitment setup.

It turned out that they indeed had an eye for a player. It led to an apology from Dortmund’s chief executive and for two and a half seasons the highlight was a 14-goal loan spell at Willem II in the Netherlands.

But Dortmund’s loss was Sociedad’s gain and remarkably he was sold to the Spaniards for the same £8m fee they had paid to AIK. If the Bundesliga club had taken care of him like they did with Haaland and Jude Bellingham, they could have made a clean sheet after that given time.

Three seasons later, Sociedad had quadrupled their investment. Newcastle watched just about every minute of his playing time in La Liga, and there they saw the development of what they believe could be the complete, modern striker.

Sources say Howe became as mesmerized as those defenders by his dribbling, feints and darts. There is indeed something attractive about Isak. From his sharp wit off the pitch to his even sharper cunning on the pitch, he is the smiling killer. Everyone has heard of him by now.