Chelsea opened talks over Alexander Isak early in the summer transfer window, but those approaches failed as the striker made clear his preference for Liverpool, sources reported. Isak is believed to have been looking to leave Newcastle as far back as April, and the Daily Mail claim Chelsea made contact to gauge his interest.<\/p>\n
The Blues were active in the early weeks of the window. Liam Delap joined from Ipswich Town for \u00a330 million on June 4, one month before Jo\u00e3o Pedrom, ironically a target for Newcastle, completed a \u00a360 million switch from Brighton & Hove Albion. Chelsea also spoke to Isak\u2019s representatives, who communicated that the Sweden striker was holding out for a move to Liverpool.<\/p>\n
The Athletic claim Liverpool were first alerted to Isak\u2019s interest in moving to Anfield in May. Complications around the sheer size of the deal meant the club proceeded with caution. It is stressed that Isak\u2019s “mood changed” after Liverpool signed Hugo Ekitik\u00e9, himself another target for Newcastle, as the 25-year-old recognised he would need to add pressure on the Magpies.<\/p>\n
Isak\u2019s controversial actions ultimately saw him granted his wish as he sealed a record-breaking move to Liverpool on Deadline Day. He could make his debut for his new side as early as September 14, away at Burnley.<\/p>\n
For Chelsea there will naturally be disappointment at missing out on a striker of Isak\u2019s calibre. Club officials can, however, point to the additions they did secure. Pedro has five goals and two assists in his first six games for the club, while Delap also caught the eye before being struck down by injury before the international break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Isak prioritised Liverpool over Chelsea, prompting deadline-day transfer after months of interest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,190,175,194,172],"tags":[195,231],"class_list":["post-2480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","category-newcastle-united","category-epl","tag-alexander-isak","tag-hugo-ekitike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480","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=2480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2487,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480\/revisions\/2487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}