Welcome to Daily Mail Sport’s live Newcastle Q&A, where Craig Hope, our chief football reporter and Newcastle expert, will answer YOUR questions about the club.
Alexander Isak is the big story in town after his bombshell statement last night. This story is developing fast and Craig is the man with all the latest details – including the men being considered to replace Isak if he does leave this summer.
Get involved now and ask Craig a question in the comments below. He will be answering from 7pm.
What on earth is going on at Newcastle United? This is a horrible way to start the season.
Well, it is. It’s far from desirable. And if you go back to the last day of last season, when Newcastle stumbled into the Champions League without home defeat against Everton, everything did seem rosy.
I was on a beach when I got the word that the Paul Mitchell was leaving the club and that was really the start of this.
Paul Mitchell went which left Newcastle United without sporting director. For 10 months, the club have known that Darren Eales was going, that left them with an outgoing CEO and with an absolute void, an absolute vacuum at C suite executive level.
Mitchell goes and then everything starts to unravel around Alexander Isak. Now, you guys say “You knew he was unhappy. Why didn’t you say this before? Why did you only choose to to break that story when you did well?”
Well, I point you to with some of my coverage coming out of last season. I was the reporter in September, early October, who broke the story that there weren’t contract talks. Up until that point, it was still being reported far and wide that that Newcastle were set to reward Isak with a new deal.
That wasn’t the case, and Isak had started the season the way he did, with one goal in seven, because of what happened in the summer, because of what didn’t happen in the summer.
At the time, Newcastle had discussions with Isak. Now in his camp, they thought he was worth and deserving of a pay increase.
There was a soft promise, if you like, to revisit in the summer, addressing what they thought was scope to improve his contract. Now that was threefold. One, it was because they thought it was deserved. Two, because they knew it would keep the player happy, and three, because they thought it would evolve.
Sporting director Paul Mitchell’s (left) departure and the exit of CEO Darren Eales (right) left a vacuum at the club
Liverpool fan here, is there any chance he still joins us?
Yes. There is.
When I was out in South Korea and Singapore, I would have put the odds on the deal happening at 70/30 in favor of it going ahead. I knew that some of those inside Newcastle had accepted his position.
His position is not without merit, both sporting and financial. He wants to go and play for the Premier League champions. He wants to go and not just play in the Champions League, compete for winning the Champions League. If he’s being given a double your money lucrative contract, I understand, and so do others inside Newcastle.
There was also sporting frustrations. Some of the promises in terms of infrastructure and development and investment in the squad hadn’t been met.
When Newcastle returned on the first day of preseason training, I know the players were joking, “Where’s the new signings?” Well, there, there was zero. That feeling is still lingering.
There are sporting reasons too, and there was some understanding for that on the inside because he was making his feelings known that he didn’t want to play for the club again.