Isak's gamble looks rash as transfer stalemate drags on

Villa Park was emptying when a chant emerged from a corner. “One greedy bastard,” they sang, and it wasn’t the Aston Villa fans referring to the £77 price of tickets in the Holte End for a 0-0 draw.

- By RICHARD JOLLY

Alexander Isak, unnamed but the object of the Newcastle supporters’ ire, may object to both the noun and the adjective. He might argue that ambition, not avarice, is driving his attempts to leave Newcastle.

He will get his way. The issue is when; where, too, depending on if his departure comes in this transfer window, January’s or next summer’s. By then, Anfield may not be the destination. One weekend does not mean plans are ripped up and nine-figure bids abandoned, but the early evidence is that Newcastle need Isak rather more than Liverpool do. There was a sliding-doors scenario whereby Isak had been allowed to go to Liverpool because Newcastle secured Hugo Ekitike. Instead, the Frenchman is Anfield’s new darling. Newcastle can congratulate themselves on their ability to identify high-class strikers and lament their inability to sign them - since Isak, anyway.

Now Newcastle have the worst of all worlds: without Isak’s services, without a replacement, without an injection of around £110m, without any goals at Villa Park. Eddie Howe praised the players who had made themselves available but, by invoking the word “distraction”, he conceded there was one. Howe called for a “resolution”.