Newcastle ‘will take £60m’ for Isak in January as cartel closes in

Alexander Isak to Liverpool is getting a bit tedious but do Newcastle just need to ‘grow up’ and sell? We all know the food chain.

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Just get it done, Newcastle
It’s all getting a little bit tedious now, isn’t it?

Liverpool want the player.

They’ll pay the going rate and a bit more.

The player wants to join them.

Newcastle hold precisely none of the cards here. Other than sheer, self defeating stubbornness.

The longer they stall, the more the player becomes disgruntled. The idea they can “reintegrate” him is frankly bollocks. He might return to training and matches. But his head won’t be there. His performances will dip. His value will depreciate. Their Premier League and Champions League campaign will be completely derailed. They’ll end up having to take £60m in January to end the pain.

Stalling also means the £120-odd million they’d get from accepting the inevitable now will just burn a hole in their pocket if it happens too close to deadline day. They’ll probably miss out on Wissa and Sesko. Livramento, linked with City, will be thinking, sod this for a game of soldiers it’s a shit show here, I’m off.

The best thing they can do is just get it done and move on. That way they can go get 4 or 5 players in, and get a feel-good factor going again.

Sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture. Indeed Liverpool themselves have done that this summer – no one wanted Diaz to leave, but he wanted out and the offer was good. A pragmatic decision that worked for all. It’s what grown up clubs do.

Newcastle, don’t say you haven’t been warned.
Andy H, Swansea

Newcastle simply missed the boat
Harry, York bemoans the fact it would take decades for Newcastle to build up the type of commercial strength Liverpool benefit from. Well guess what, it took them decades too, many of them.

Newcastle once bought Alan Shearer for a world record fee and until recently have consistently played in front of “the best fans in the world” which in terms of bums on seats, outnumbered Liverpool consistently until very recently.

Your club had exactly the same opportunities as all the other clubs did prior to PSR and it’s just a simple fact that Liverpool did better with it.

You’ve now had a significant leg up bestowed upon you by wealthy owners, at a time when you had Steve Bruce as your manager and fighting relegation. In the period since they’ve been your owners you’ve got to the Champions League twice, finally won something and been able to ‘unearth’ the £40m Bruno.

So no, you’re right, you won’t get much sympathy. It’s called the food chain and we’re all part of it my friend.
James, Kent

Is Premier League run by Big Six cartel?
In answer to this question is: YES.

They have been allowed to get away with building up revenue and leeching good players by smaller PL clubs to the detriment of these smaller clubs and in so doing made money with the full support of the Premier League. eg. Chelsea selling the ladies team to Chelsea’s owners for £200m plus hotels owned by Chelsea Football club.

Now Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa are catching on and following suit.

It won’t take long before the Premier League close that loop hole as they have done with Newcastle United.

But not until the PL feel the top 6 clubs have got all they can from their own assets.

The PL is not a fair league and will never be because the cartel of 6 are supported by the PL and Mr Masters & crew.

BUT changes will happen despite every effort the PL and cartel try to stop it.

Watch this space because if fairness does not prevail the PL will become another mediocre league.
Martyn Hancock, Proud Toon Army Member

PS. Howay the lads and lasses the Toon army is on a march onward and upward even without Isak.

MAILBOX: Liverpool ‘paid shills’ forcing through Isak transfer in nightmare Newcastle summer

Fanmail for Dave
Ah Dave. Dave, Dave, Dave.

Absolutely love the fact you’ve made my mailbox submission (mentions about Liverpool only: Zero ) entirely about Liverpool, because that’s what you like to do best right?

Your arbitrary choice of deadline to compare spending is interesting, some top narrative spin there. So let’s do the same, over the last five years.

Liverpool (because everything has to be about them right?) -404.73m
Everton: +48.68m

Average of the Cartel Clubs: -562m

Average of us plucky 14 “having a go”: -113m

So yeah absolutely you are right. It should be dead easy to smash our way into the cartel.

I mean that’s exactly what PSR is about eh? Helping everyone crack that cosy club open?

Not sure why nobody has thought of what you said sooner, it’s clearly that straightforward. Await with anticipation your next instalment of ‘make it all about Liverpool’.
Ian, EFC and rent free clearly

…Definitely time for a separate Liverpool bellends mailbox. Dave LFC and Ed Ern need locking in there.
Yo Lo

Produce some kids
It’s really quite simple – to get around the notion of a big six bias we should invite NUFC and AVFC supporters to explain to us which players their academies have recently produced that are first team regulars and/or have been sold for pure profit.

I couldn’t be bothered to look it up but I don’t recall many more than the Longstaffs and Grealish respectively. Compare this to what the Man City and Chelsea academies have produced/sold recently.

Therein lie their conundrums.
Wik, Pretoria (when last was there an article or mail about NUFC which didn’t have the term PSR in it?), LFC

The perfect modern transfer
It’s 2025 in the Premier League. Transfer fees are now spread over 5 year contracts, academy players are sold for ‘pure profit’ and everyone has a release clause. Which brings us to our perfect 2025 transfer.

Arsenal swap Lokonga & Nelson for Crystal Palace’s Eze.

The way the deal would go down:
Crystal Palace buy Reiss Nelson for £35m (real value is £15-20m).
Crystal Place buy Albert Sambi Lokonga for £20m (real value is £10).
Arsenal make £35m pure, some extra on Lokonga and rid themselves of some deadwood.
Crystal Palace bring in two young, Premier League level players with good potential.

Arsenal then pays the full £68m release clause (split in £23m over 3 years or £34m over 2).
Arsenal get Eze for ‘free’ this year. (In the books he would cost £23m/£35 and they just got £35m for Nelson).
Crystal Palace get their full release clause and in bigger chunks than normal.

Win. Win.
Adam M., Halifax
(Chelsea started it!).

Worrying about the women
I have a theory/concern about the women’s game in the future.

I hear and read about the players in the team (let’s just use England for now) who all seemingly, accordingly to the coaches and teams they played for when they were 6-14, lets say, when they were growing up and first playing football, were ‘so good’ that they were playing a level up and or mainly against the boys or in the boys teams, We hear it again and again, She was head and shoulders above her peers and she was playing in the under 14s boys teams..

Now.. my theory/concern is this..

If you are a 14yr old girl, that’s good enough, strong and fast and skilled enough, to be playing against 14-16yr old boys, then you will learn faster, be harder, deal with more physical challenges, have to put up with far more things and be far more resilient because of it. (they say this themselves)

So Lucy (the female Pearce/Butcher incarnate) Bronze (strapping up her own leg while the physios dealt with someone else will be more memorable for me than actually playing with a fracture for some reason), would have been smashing into tackles against lads much bigger than her, then she gets to 18-20 and suddenly having to play against ladies (girls still at that age?) as there is no possibility for her to keep playing against the men/boys – she going to seem like a killer..

My point (yes I’m getting to it) is really that as the game is now as popular as it ought to be and so many young girls are allegedly playing every week, they are all now training against other girls, they do not have the massive disadvantage or challenge of playing against the lads.
So they dont have to battle as hard to make it through the ranks – All this is good I hear you cry… but is it.. Does it bode well for the standard in the next 10 yrs?

I have a ‘fear’ (too strong a word as it has little no relevance in my old male life) that the quality of womens football will decline over the next 10yrs not improve purely due to the fact that they will have far more access and far less challenge or competition and an easier a ride to the top.

Or am I talking absolute mailbox nonsense?

If this is published than I am assuming I will find out very quickly…
Al – LFC – Hopefully not coming off as sexist.. Not how it was meant at all – Also worried Liverpool will need to win every game 9-7…

What a moment…enjoy
Our Sarina dancing with Burna Boy was my highlight of the Euro 2025 celebrations.

The sheer joy around England Women’s team’s celebrations has warmed my heart.

There’s so much anger and hatred around the beautiful game.

If football causes you to have those feelings, may I suggest you’re doing it all wrong.

Celebrate the victories like you mean it, learn from the defeats, but leave them in the past where they belong.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

Stop being so positive
I’m not an avid watcher of the women’s game, but I’ve watched bits and pieces, been to a couple of games and am generally of the opinion that sport for everyone is a great thing and it’s wonderful more girls are playing football.

However, am I the only one that finds the coverage exhaustingly upbeat? It’s like everything has to be 1,000% positive at all times and anything even vaguely approaching critique is misogynistic. I actually find it quite patronising. The amount of times I’ve heard X female player has “smashed one into the top bins” only to see the highlight and the ball is a good couple of feet from both post and crossbar. It’s like the entire media become Rio Ferdinand watching Man Utd in a big game. It’s actually off putting to me as a casual fan.

I didn’t want England to win the other night; nothing against the players or the game, but just because I knew how insufferable the next week or so would be. Sure enough, there’s quotes like “it’s tempting to say Chloe Kelly is the next David Beckham”. No it’s not, he was pretty much the most famous man in the world for a time and completely reinvented the concept of athlete as celebrity.

In short, women’s football good, overly hyperbolic coverage of women’s football bad. For an example of the latter, read any piece on the subject by Nicholson, John.
Lewis, Busby Way

A quick history lesson
Just a quick history lesson for the soulless ghouls who feel the need to constantly compare the status of women’s and men’s football.

During WW1, when almost every man of age was sent to war, women’s football flourished in their absence. Initially seen as a joke (Women, playing football???) and played for charity, cup competitions were soon formed and people went to see the skill on show. One Boxing Day match in 1920 attracted 53,000 spectators and many more locked out.

When the war ended and men started returning back from the front, women were moved back to more domestic roles. In 1922, partly due to the ‘medical advice’ that women’s frames were unsuitable for the sport the FA BANNED women from playing any form of organised football. This was certainly NOT because it was legitimately competing with mens football. Not at all.

Luckily, the FA overturned the ban in 1971. Yep, nearly 50 years of no football for women. There was not even a World Cup until 1991. It is only now, in 2025, we are seeing an incredible surge in participation at grassroots that will undoubtedly produce players that are even better than the incredible squad that just won the Euros.

You want to sit there and say it is not at the same quality as mens football? No shit Sherlock. That’s down to men being scared back in the 1920’s that women’s football was becoming too good, too entertaining and too popular to compete with and shutting it down for the best part of 50 years. Every man who is complaining about too much coverage, or how a male keeper would save all those penalties or how a boys team can beat a women’s team are just echoes of those frightened old pricks from a century ago. Just evolve a little will you?

Lastly, years ago when I could still run around and thought of myself as a semi decent footballer, I was on a coaching course run by a female ex-professional player. She could hit a ball harder and more accurately than any of the men there, and it wasn’t even close. So although these women may not be as ‘good’ as prime Ronaldo (the Brazillian one obv.) they are almost certainly better than YOU.
Funstar (I bloody enjoyed the Euros and am sad for those blinkered souls that didn’t) Andy