Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe has rejected knowledge of a reported board decision that Alexander Isak was not for sale, while the club continues to rebuff approaches from Liverpool. Isak has been training away from his teammates as talks over a move have dominated the summer.<\/p>\n
Howe has previously warned of disciplinary action should Isak\u2019s attitude remain unchanged and has confirmed the striker would not be involved in first-team activities at this point. Effectively ruled out of next weekend\u2019s Premier League opener against Aston Villa, it remains to be seen if Isak will feature in Newcastle\u2019s tantalising clash with Liverpool on Aug. 25 and for which side.<\/p>\n
When asked about reports that the board had told Isak he was not for sale, Howe said: \u201cThat\u2019s not something I\u2019m aware of. Of course, there\u2019s discussions going on all the time that I\u2019m not party to. I have no knowledge of that.\u201d He was also asked if he could simply talk to Isak and smooth over differences while discussions continued. \u201cIf it was that easy, I\u2019d have done it yesterday,\u201d the English boss sniffed.<\/p>\n
Those firm lines from Newcastle are said to have created \u201cacrimony and tension\u201d, with Isak described as being in a state of \u201cfury\u201d, according to The Telegraph. Co-owner Jamie Reuben has been leading transfer negotiations alongside Howe\u2019s nephew Andy in the absence of a permanent sporting director and is described as taking a \u201cbelligerent\u201d stance.<\/p>\n
Reports suggest the club\u2019s stance is unlikely to change. The Times say the chances of Newcastle altering their position are \u201cextremely unlikely\u201d even if they sign another forward. The same report states Newcastle are preparing a \u00a330 million bid for Brentford\u2019s Yoane Wissa, who is expected to play alongside Isak should the deal proceed.<\/p>\n
For now, the matter remains unresolved on and off the field as Newcastle maintain a firm negotiating posture while Isak remains separated from the first team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Howe denies awareness of a board ban on Isak as the striker trains apart amid Liverpool interest now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,194],"tags":[195,493,59,182],"class_list":["post-1456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-newcastle-united","tag-alexander-isak","tag-eddie-howe","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1457,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions\/1457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}