In his latest piece for iNews, Mark Douglas has revealed some interesting details about Alexander Isak’s club-record move to St James’ Park last summer.
He reports that Toon chiefs flew out to San Sebastian to table an opening offer worth £33m, but ‘returned within hours’ with a MUCH improved bid after our cheeky opener was immediately rejected by Real Sociedad.
In that second offer, we not only agreed to pay £26m more, along with a further £3m in add-ons (meaning the £59m deal could rise to £62m), it’s believed we agreed to include a 10% sell-on clause.
As Douglas explains in his piece, one club insider feared we’d overpaid ‘for the player he is now’, yet it hasn’t taken long for that fee to look very reasonable. After all, you won’t find many players of his age, potential and all-around ability for that sort of money.
It shows how highly he was regarded that Newcastle agreed to almost double their initial bid for the Swede, with a source close to the club telling Douglas “it will look like an absolute bargain” in years to come.
Financially, Isak would immediately justify that club-record fee if his end of season form fires us to a place in the Champions League, with a top four finish and big European nights at St James’ Park helping us attract top players and secure the sort of lucrative commercial deals we’ve been pushing to improve since new owners arrived.
Only Erling Haaland has a better minutes per goal record in the Premier League this season, but you don’t need stats to see what an outstanding young player he is, with few strikers in world football possessing his unique blend of pace, elegance, creativity and class.
As for the 10% sell-on clause, let’s hope we don’t have to think about that anytime soon, as he has the potential to be our main man up top for many years to come.
