Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe has claimed that the Alexander Isak saga is set to \u201cend quickly\u201d, while he has revealed his \u201cpreference\u201d on the situation.<\/p>\n
Isak<\/strong> <\/a>has given Howe a severe headache in recent months as the world-class striker is intent on leaving Newcastle for Premier League rivals Liverpool<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n It has been reported that Liverpool are willing to bid again for Isak, though this is unlikely to come before Monday\u2019s match against Newcastle<\/strong><\/a>, who are keen to secure a suitable replacement before sanctioning the \u00a3150m star\u2019s exit.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, Isak won\u2019t feature against Liverpool as he is still training alone and is yet to be reintegrated into Newcastle\u2019s first team.<\/p>\n It remains to be seen whether this will eventually happen as this saga took an ugly turn earlier this week, with Isak and Newcastle issuing statements to outline their respective stances on this situation.<\/p>\n Naturally, Howe was asked about Isak during his pre-match press conference on Friday morning, during which the head coach admitted that he hasn\u2019t \u201cseen\u201d the striker \u201cthis week\u201d, while the saga is \u201ccoming to an end\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t seen him this week,\u201d Howe admitted.<\/p>\n READ:\u00a0Liverpool \u2018some distance from transfer genius\u2019 if they spend \u00a3150m on \u2018d***head\u2019<\/a> \u201cI saw him last week. When I see him, we speak as normal. There are no issues there between us. It\u2019s a difficult situation from both sides.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s far from ideal for both parties. Alex is training later on and detached from the group. We will catch up at some stage.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cIt looks like [the saga] is coming to an end, or it will come to an end pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Howe has also insisted that he would have \u201cpreferred\u201d for this saga to have been \u201cdealt with behind closed doors\u201d, while he has a \u201cwish\u201d relating to Isak.<\/p>\n \u201cMy preference for these things it that it doesn\u2019t happen publicly,\u201d Howe continued.<\/p>\n MORE ALEXANDER ISAK COVERAGE ON F365\u2026 \u201cEverything is better dealt with behind closed doors but in this situation, needs must and in this situation the club has spoken and justifiably so in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked whether Isak can return to the squad, Howe responded: \u201cOf course [I want him to], he is contracted to us and he is our player.<\/p>\n \u201cMy wish is that he will be playing with us on Monday and 100% I want to see him back in a Newcastle shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n In Isak\u2019s absence, England international Anthony Gordon has started as a stand-in striker and Howe has praised the 24-year-old for doing the \u201cjob really well for the team\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has done it enough to be able to do the job really well for the team,\u201d Howe said.<\/p>\n \u201cI have played him there a number of times both as a starter and as a substitute. He plays it differently to other strikers but that can be a positive in the respect that he has devastating pace and a strong work ethic.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course he\u2019s scored goals historically from wide areas but also from central areas and I think you can over play the change of position and I think he enjoys the role and he played really well last week.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had a lot of chances and a lot of shots so I thought it was a good display from him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe has claimed that the Alexander Isak saga is set to \u201cend quickly\u201d, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[9261,748,814,393,4884,225,179,3047,12,101,16,2970,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-364360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-alexander-isak","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eddie-howe","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-home-page","14":"tag-liverpool","15":"tag-newcastle-united","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-premier-league","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-uncategorized","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115071859008358725","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Liverpool set to \u2018trigger new Alexander Isak offer\u2019 amid \u2018internal belief\u2019 on \u2018\u00a35m\u2019 Newcastle \u2018promise\u2019<\/a>
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Newcastle \u2018agree terms\u2019 for Isak replacement in Liverpool boost as fee revealed amid four conditions<\/a>
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0\u2018Arsenal can hijack Alexander Isak to Liverpool transfer\u2019, it says here<\/a>
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