Alexander Isak has been accused of \u201cnot wanting\u201d Newcastle United to qualify for the Champions League, a claim that stems from reporting around a stalled contract and his behaviour during the closing stages of the 2024\u201325 season.<\/p>\n
According to The Guardian, the story began in the first half of 2024 when Amanda Staveley reportedly promised Isak a new contract to be delivered that summer. Staveley was dislodged in June and Paul Mitchell is said to have withdrawn the inflated offer. The U-turn has been linked to Isak\u2019s slow start to the 2024\u201325 campaign, when he managed one league goal in his opening six appearances and was described as “incandescent.” <\/p>\n
Eddie Howe helped Isak recover form, overseeing a productive run at the turn of the year that was capped by Isak\u2019s winning goal in the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool. After that victory, The Telegraph reported the 25-year-old became “quiet and withdrawn.” The same report said some within the club felt he was \u201cbehaving like someone who did not want the team to qualify for the Champions League.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statistically, over the period in question Isak scored four Premier League goals, half of which were penalties. Only two players in the division recorded a higher non-penalty expected goals tally than Isak across April and May. He also converted an 89th-minute penalty to secure a point against Brighton & Hove Albion with three games of the campaign remaining.<\/p>\n
Supporters\u2019 discontent grew before Isak\u2019s departure. The influential supporters\u2019 group Wor Flags, responsible for the murals at St James\u2019 Park, voiced strong criticism on Instagram: \u201cYou were idolised and adored by every generation of our brilliant fan base, legendary status,\u201d they wrote. \u201cYou have shown your true colours and thrown it right back in the face of those same supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reports combine contractual fallout, a midseason revival and lingering questions about motivation in the final weeks of the campaign. Club insiders, national outlets and fan groups all feature in the narrative that has followed Isak since the contract reversal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Claims say Alexander Isak hindered Newcastle’s Champions League bid after contract reversal in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,172],"tags":[195,493,180],"class_list":["post-2409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newcastle-united","category-epl","tag-alexander-isak","tag-eddie-howe","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409","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=2409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2417,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions\/2417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}