After being exiled from the team’s family day and cookout, Alexander Isak has now been excluded from Newcastle United’s squad for the Sela Cup friendlies this weekend. That is according to reporting from the Daily Mail’s Newcastle beat reporter Craig Hope.
Stranger things in football have certainly happened, and rehabilitation and staying at Newcastle can’t be ruled out completely, but it’s edging increasingly towards a near and total zero. Recent reports that Newcastle have known about the player’s wishes to leave for over a year, and having his future be dictated by the club’s incompetence at bringing in a replacement will guarantee further agitation from the player and his camp.
Journalist Ben Jacobs adds that Newcastle’s failure to convince Benjamin Sesko to join their project will not affect Isak’s situation. Indeed, keeping me to keep up the pretense of adding a striker and not replacing Isak seems almost pointless due to the public nature of Newcastle’s recruiting summer from hell. Everyone knows they need to find replacement strikers, and they have no leverage. There’s almost no point pretending otherwise now. Expect this saga to accelerate towards the finish line sooner rather than later.