Alexander Isak’s ‘shocking’ behaviour blasted by Keane, Neville, Wright in Newcastle ‘hold out’ verdict
Alexander Isak’s antics at Liverpool have been blasted as “shocking” by Ian Wright while the likes of Roy Keane and Gary Neville also condemned his behaviour.
The striker has made it clear he wants to be allowed to move to Liverpool but with the Anfield side yet to submit a bid that Newcastle find acceptable, the north east side are standing firm and making Isak stick to his contract.
As a result, Isak has thrown his toys out of the pram, reportedly moving out of his Newcastle home and telling the club he will not play for them again.
That behaviour has rubbed the Stick to Football panel up the wrong way with the likes of Wright, Keane and Neville saying he has acted poorly.
“It doesn’t look good,” Wright said. “And you have to say there’s a lot of talk about what was promised to him. Maybe through [former director Amanda] Staveley. Maybe she promised a contract or money, whatever it was but then obviously, she’s gone now and maybe that’s the gentleman’s agreement.
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“It’s terrible behaviour. It’s shocking behaviour. I don’t know what’s happened with his agent. I don’t know if his agent ain’t done the job properly, whatever it is.”
Keane, who himself has wanted away from a number of clubs in his career, suggested that even during fallouts with the club, players should still want to train and play.
“You still want to train and play. If you’re a footballer, and there’s stuff going on, I’m always wary when people ‘say you were promised something.’ They’re already on deals.
“I just think you’ve got a footballer and you might be disappointed with a club but you still want to train and play. I just think the benefits to me of training and playing is if I stay or if I go, I’d be ready instead of ‘I’m going to go out and train with somebody else for a few weeks.’ I can’t even imagine.”
Neville meanwhile looked at how the Newcastle owners may react and said they were facing a choice of selling now for a cut fee or holding for what they perceive is his true value.
“Throw this forward, because to be fair the big players in this are the Newcastle owners. They’re sat there in Saudi Arabia. They’ve got all the money in the world, and they’re being threatened, blackmailed, whatever you want to call it by a football player.
“The football player said he’s not coming back unless you let me go to Liverpool. What do they do? Because I’m thinking it from an owner’s perspective, do you hold out for the value or you then, to be fair, set a precedent that any player can come into your club and say ‘by the way, I’m not training, I’m not playing’ and then you let them go.
“Do they have to stand strong and say ‘I’m sorry, mate, you’re staying at this football club this season. If you’d gone about it a bit of a better way, you might have got out of it, but you’re actually not going.'”
Keane though believed that Newcastle fans would soon forgive Isak should he start scoring.
“For all the fans turn against him now, the season starts, he scores a few goals, listen we know what fans are like ‘you’re a king one minute then you’re an idiot the next.’ They’d be all over him.”
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