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View image in fullscreen‘Not in my hands’: diplomatic Howe has lost control of Isak’s Newcastle future

The £150m-rated Sweden striker has effectively gone on strike as he holds out for a transfer to champions Liverpool

As a player at Bournemouth and Portsmouth Eddie Howe could invariably be found reading the foreign news pages of the then broadsheets while travelling to matches on the team bus.

More than two decades on, the Newcastle manager’s ability to construct carefully worded, supremely diplomatic, sentences loaded with cleverly calibrated between-the-lines subtext make it easy to imagine him as some sort of international envoy.

In an alternative life Howe could, perhaps, have currently been shuttling between Cairo, Doha, Jerusalem and Washington DC conducting delicate Middle East peace talks.

After resisting overtures to be reintegrated with Howe’s squad, Isak continues to train alone and, it is understood, will shortly be fined the maximum permissible two weeks’ wages for making himself unavailable for Saturday’s season opener at Aston Villa.

“I’ve said many times I want Alex to train and play,” said Howe as he faced the media on Friday.

In perhaps the most revealing moment of Friday’s press conference he was asked whether, when Newcastle sealed Champions League qualification in May, he was confident of Isak fulfilling the three remaining years on his contract.

“I was not thinking of any individual in that moment, so I can’t really give an answer on that,” he said, carefully.

“I understand why you might think that,” said Howe.

Technically they can, of course, but unhappy players do not make for harmonious, let alone winning, teams.

Howe said of Isak’s behaviour in, among other things, skipping the pre-season tour of Singapore and South Korea: “I don’t think it has been healthy for us.

“I don’t you can achieve anything with a squad that’s not totally united and keen to represent the club,” said Howe, pointedly.
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