The first international break of the season arrives in the immediate aftermath of Liverpool completing the Premier League record-transfer of Alexander Isak. The move was made official a day earlier, bringing an end to what had been the biggest transfer saga of the summer.<\/p>\n
In an interview, Gy\u00f6keres admitted he congratulated him on the move. When asked about the wider debate over player power \u2014 players forcing their way out of a club \u2014 he offered a measured perspective. \u201cI think the clubs have the most power,\u201d Gy\u00f6keres said. \u201dIt\u2019s maybe difficult for the players to choose in a lot of cases. When it\u2019s a player that\u2019s not wanted in a club it\u2019s the total opposite, he doesn\u2019t have any power and the club can literally do whatever they want with the player. It\u2019s difficult, but it\u2019s how the situation is.\u201d<\/p>\n
That view is informed by recent events. Newcastle United were adamant on keeping Isak despite the player making his desire to join Liverpool abundantly clear. After training by himself for a month, Isak finally got his dream move to Anfield.<\/p>\n
Gy\u00f6keres experienced comparable resistance during his own transfer. Before joining Arsenal, Sporting CP made it hard for the Gunners to complete the transfer, with the striker\u2019s agent eventually accusing his former club for disrespecting Gy\u00f6keres in the negotiations.<\/p>\n
Both Swedes were among the most coveted strikers in the transfer window, with major European clubs vying for their services. In the end, both players landed at the destinations they wanted.<\/p>\n
On the international stage the pair continue to carry expectation. Gy\u00f6keres and Isak have scored 31 goals between them for the national team, and they will begin their World Cup qualifier campaign when they visit Slovenia on Friday. The recent transfers and the comments around player influence ensure the topic remains central as national teams regroup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A striker defends a record transfer, addresses player power and recalls similar transfer struggles .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[195,59,180],"class_list":["post-2440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-epl","tag-alexander-isak","tag-featured","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440","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=2440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2444,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440\/revisions\/2444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}