Alexander Isak is a transfer target for Arsenal and talks over a contract extension for the Newcastle striker have ended, boosting the Gunners’ chances of signing him
Arsenal have been handed a major boost in their pursuit of Alexander Isak after it emerged that Newcastle are no longer in talks with the striker over a new deal.
The Gunners are among a number of clubs who are interested in signing Isak, who has scored 32 Premier League goals in 58 games since joining Newcastle from Real Sociedad in 2022. Isak signed a six-year deal when he made the move to St James’ Park which is due to expire in 2028.
Newcastle and Isak have held discussions about extending his contract, but the Daily Mail are now reporting that those talks have collapsed. The report states that talks began towards the end of last season, but Newcastle felt Isak was ‘reluctant to commit’.
And it is now claimed that both the club and the player ‘do not see a need’ to sort an extension, with more than three years left on his current deal. However, Isak is said to be desperate to play Champions League football and he has ‘doubts over the speed of the project on Tyneside’.
It is claimed that Isak could ‘seek a move’ if Newcastle fail to finish in the top four this season and Arsenal could capitalise on their interest, with Toon chief Paul Mitchell admitting last month that they may need to sell some of their top players.
“We can’t do what we probably have done in the last two and a half years and just say right, let’s just physically and only capitally fund this and not sell a player and just build that way because we’ve already – through great work by many involved, including Eddie, including Darren Eales – got ourselves out of quite a big hole between June and July,” Mitchell said.
“I think we have to be smarter and more intelligent not to find ourselves in that hole again. So I think that there is a strategy that comes into play. I think if we could have signed a player that we actively could make a really good squad better, would we?
“Of course we would. Was, let’s say, the scouting network, the lengths and breadths of our process and our strategies in terms of just that area of expertise, including the influence of Eddie Howe, bigger and broader enough? Probably not. And that’s the bit we analyse to be better.
“That’s the bit where we have to adjust and modernise. And also, maybe that’s a bit of reality as well, like, can we spend to the same level as what we’ve spent the last two and a half years? When sustainability is real, you cannot keep spending and not selling any football players.
“The maths doesn’t work. I think you look at the teams that have really heavily spent this summer, they’ve sold players at certain points in the last couple of years, that has helped fund their spends this year, we haven’t in the last two-and-a-half years.”
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