Isak bombshell statement prompts outbreak of headline accuracy as Salah ‘replaced’
Legitimately excitable responses to Alexander Isak’s statement and the fallout from it understandably dominate the headlines, but there’s still plenty of guff and nonsense to be found elsewhere.
Reach out
Mediawatch doesn’t mind admitting that Alexander Isak’s EXPLOSIVE STATEMENT last night has rattled us.
Not because of the content of the actual statement or anything, but because it has sparked all manner of headlines featuring tropes that are usually an absolute guarantee of nonsense but are, in this case, confusingly accurate. He really has broken his silence. True colours? All over the shop.
We feel like we’re in Bizarro World. Even this classically formed Reach headline from the Mirror…
Alexander Isak: Liverpool respond to explosive statement as transfer ‘approved’
…actually means exactly what it looks like it means. What the f*ck are we supposed to do with that?
It really is actually about about Liverpool making a new bid for Isak. That’s the ‘transfer approved’. We cannot tell you how confident we were clicking into it. We were so, so certain said ‘approved transfer’ was going to be the sale of some youth player or other to some desperate relegation battler for £20m or something.
The discovery that it was actually about Isak has spun us out entirely. Even the quote marks are genuinely quoting another report about the same thing in the same context.
We honestly think this might be the first time we’ve seen the ‘as’ headline deployed in a non-disingenuous manner. And by Reach? Is absolutely nothing sacred?
Whether or not Newcastle or Isak or Liverpool actually do face any kind of ‘transfer backlash’ for this whole carry-on, one thing is for sure. Mediawatch will never forgive any of them for making Reach headlines accurate. We are extremely disoriented right now.
Kob sh*te
Luckily, it’s still normal service elsewhere for the Mirror. Take, for instance, this headline.
Kobbie Mainoo message sent to Ruben Amorim as he receives reminder amid £60m transfer link
Rio Ferdinand talked about Kobbie Mainoo for a bit on YouTube. The £60m? A made-up guess of a number for what it might cost to sign Adam Wharton from Crystal Palace.
Allow Mediawatch a moment if you will to wallow in the warm comforting embrace of egregious headline bullsh*t. That was a scary couple of minutes back there.
What’s in a name?
While there may be an unnerving quantity of excitable yet undeniably accurate Isak content floating around today, hats off to the Liverpool Echo for managing to find another way in.
Virgil van Dijk namedrops Alexander Isak in reply to Liverpool question amid transfer saga
Here we go. Asked which striker he thinks Liverpool should sign, was he?
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has namedropped Alexander Isak when discussing the toughest opponents he’s ever faced at the PFA awards gala. This admission comes amid the Reds’ interest in the Sweden striker – in a saga which has spilled over into the new season.
Oh. Van Dijk also namedropped Erling Haaland, Ollie Watkins and Harry Kane among the most difficult strikers he’s faced in the Premier League. Presumably we can expect Liverpool to be making late lowball bids for those lads as well.
It would have been weirder if Van Dijk hadn’t ‘admitted’ a player with 44 goals from 64 games across the last two Premier League seasons was one of the best he’s faced. Not to mention the fact Isak has also scored four goals for Newcastle in six games against Liverpool, including quite memorably leaving Van Dijk with his head in his hands after scoring the decisive goal in an actual cup final.
Slow Mo
The Express have had a look at FotMob and spotted that Liverpool new boy Jeremie Frimpong clocked the fastest top speed of any Premier League player on the new season’s opening weekend, and decided to knock out a story about it.
Which is absolutely fine. What’s weird is deciding to make that story all about Mo Salah for absolutely no apparent reason.
Liverpool now have the fastest player in the Premier league as Mohamed Salah replaced
Doesn’t make sense, does it? If Salah was the fastest player previously, then surely Liverpool already had the fastest player and there would be no need for that ‘now’. Almost like Salah was no in fact the previous fastest player. Hmm.
The intro, though, repeats the assertion.
Mohamed Salah has lost his crown in the battle to be the fastest player in the Premier League. Instead, it is new Liverpool teammate Jeremie Frimpong who has earned that award following the start of the 2025/26 campaign.
So… ‘lost his crown’ would appear to be pretty clear. Salah was the fastest, he had that crown, but now has lost it. To Frimpong. Careless of him, really.
There are then several paragraphs waxing lyrical about the incredible pace possessed by all manner of other Liverpool players, before the Express finally get round to revealing the top 10 fastest players from the opening weekend.
No surprise to see certain names popping up here. Tottenham’s Micky van de Ven and Djed Spence are in there. Newcastle’s Anthony Gordon and Anthony Elanga, obviously, and Pedro Neto of Chelsea.
Kevin Schade cracks the top 10, as do Leeds’ Daniel James and Manchester United’s new signing Matheus Cunha. Gabriel Martinelli is there too.
Maths fans will have already spotted that this means super-speedy fast Liverpool with their team if super speedy fast players have… no other player in the top 10. Not even famously fast super speedster Salah.
However, in the short-term, the 33-year-old is not even in the top 10 as it stands.
Pesky fact: it’s in the long-term as well, Salah having also finished up outside the top 10 last season. And in 2023/24. And also in 2022/23. He last made the top 10 in 2021/22. But didn’t hold the crown then either, with Antonio Rudiger the fastest man on show.
Salah has previously been regarded as the quickest player in the Premier League, but the Egyptian may now, quite literally, have a run for his money to regain that title.
Which rather begs the questions: when, and by who?
And we’re going to stick our neck out here and say that at 33 years old Salah is enormously unlikely to ‘regain that title’ in this apparently literal run for his money and also that, given his current status as Golden Boot-holding Premier League champion and newly-crowned three-time PFA player of the year, he is unlikely to give even the tiniest of shiny sh*tes.
