The Premier League\u2019s most expensive player teased \u2018something for another day\u2019 after his return to action on Monday.<\/p>\n
Liverpool<\/strong><\/a> striker Alexander Isak was a second-half substitute for Anthony Elanga in Sweden\u2019s comprehensive defeat at the hands of Kosovo in a World Cup qualifier in Pristina.<\/p>\n Taking to the field for the first time since refusing to play for Newcastle United<\/strong><\/a> in order to force his transfer to the Premier League<\/strong><\/a> champions, Isak got his first taste of 2025-26 public opinion.<\/p>\n Sweden were beaten 2-0 in a game described by the Swedish press<\/a> as a \u2018fiasco\u2019 and a \u2018painful drag\u2019, leaving them winless in their first two fixtures in Group B after Friday\u2019s draw in Slovenia.<\/p>\n Isak wasn\u2019t involved in Sweden\u2019s first qualifier after completing his switch to Anfield for a reported British transfer record fee of \u00a3125m and was welcomed in a way to which he will soon become accustomed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe forward played his first match since May and was met with boos,\u201d reports Fotbollskanalen<\/a>.<\/p>\n Isak was shown a yellow card for his part in a minor fracas with Kosovo players but had no other noteworthy impact on a game that has Sweden\u2019s sports media seething.<\/p>\n Speaking to them after the match, Isak discussed his controversial deadline day move from Newcastle to Liverpool for the first time and indicated that more details could emerge.<\/p>\n \u201cNot everyone has the full picture, but that\u2019s something for another day,\u201d said Isak<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t control everything that\u2019s said or written. But I\u2019m happy that I became a Liverpool player.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great that everything was settled before the camp and that I could focus on playing football again.\u201d<\/p>\n That Isak felt unable to focus on football until September was self-inflicted and he wasn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n For Newcastle, it was a case of strike action giveth and strike action taketh away when Brentford\u2019s Yoane Wissa dug his heels in to become part of the Magpies\u2019 post-Isak solution, a tactic that might feel more common than ever but is nothing new<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Isak can expect a similar reception around the Premier League this season. Football fans are used to players wanting to move from one club to another but the Sweden striker\u2019s approach is seen to have crossed a line.<\/p>\n Premier League players are extremely well paid and while that doesn\u2019t disallow them from feeling unhappy, disgruntled or just itchy for a different challenge, it does come with the expectation that they behave in a professional manner.<\/p>\n MORE LIVERPOOL COVERAGE ON F365\u2026 Isak is right to point out that not everyone has the full picture, but sympathy wears thin when supporters are presented with irrefutable evidence that a player isn\u2019t doing his job. The details barely matter.<\/p>\n Wissa might get away with that in terms of the wider response. Isak won\u2019t. Thriving at a club near the top of the Premier League, with a Champions League campaign on the way and the glow of a historic cup win still warm, he was by any publicly available measure in a good place.<\/p>\n The least supporters should be able to expect in that situation is for a player to show up and work to the best of his ability, regardless of transfer developments going on behind the scenes.<\/p>\n Whatever we do or don\u2019t know about those developments, sitting out matches and training in an attempt to force a sale or drive down a fee is the sort of behaviour that will always go down badly.<\/p>\n The whole story might come out at some point, but it\u2019s unlikely to change much. For Isak, a player who had it all but crossed a line because he wanted more, there are many more boos to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Premier League\u2019s most expensive player teased \u2018something for another day\u2019 after his return to action on Monday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[9261,14147,94,225,179,3047,12,101,79,16,2970,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-410260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-alexander-isak","9":"tag-f365-says","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-home-page","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-newcastle-united","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-premier-league","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-uncategorized","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115174024433380756","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410260","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=410260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ud83d\udc49 Everybody makes the same point about Florian Wirtz and Kevin de Bruyne\u2026<\/a>
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Newcastle fleeced for extra \u00a390m as Liverpool stung for Alexander Isak<\/a>
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Alexander Isak \u2018doubtful for next two Liverpool games\u2019 after Sweden blow<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n