Newcastle United’s pre-season campaign got off to the perhaps the worst possible start on Saturday afternoon.

The Mags fell to a humbling 4-0 loss at Celtic Park, missing out on the Adidas Trophy in the process in what was a torrid performance for the 10,000 travelling fans to witness.

With no Isak, Joelinton or Livramento to call upon, Eddie Howe will no doubt spend the next few days pushing the club to bring in some new players in time for our upcoming tour of Asia.

Here’s what the gaffer had to say after the game in Glasgow, featuring a fairly mixed assessment of Alexander Isak’s that raises plenty of questions after a week full of Liverpool links.

Howe on Isak’s future

Despite the club repeatedly stating that Isak is not for sale this summer, this has not stopped speculation surrounding the Swede this summer.

And Isak’s absence today has only gone and fuelled even more doubts around his future, which Howe has been keen to address.

The boss has been quick to quieten down some of the noise, but only to a point, refusing to confirm if he’ll stay this summer and revealing that his decision not to play was partly due to the ongoing speculation that isn’t going away.

Speaking to the media from Celtic Park, Howe said:

“Both (Joelinton & Isak) are fit but not ready to play. Alex has trained and is fine but we didn’t want to take the risk with him.

“I chose to send him home. The last thing Alex wants if he is not playing is to be sat in the stand and under that scrutiny, then if he wasn’t going to play today, we mutually agreed he shouldn’t be here.

“Yes I’ve had discussions with him, but that’s not abnormal. I respect a player’s career and how short it is. Alex has been really good, he’s trained really well and I realise there’ll be noise around him.

“Has there been any approach for Alex? No, there’s been no formal approach.

“We have a few of those players who are irreplaceable. Your top players are so hard to find, so hard to recruit and so hard to develop. So when you have them, you need to treasure them. Of course we’re desperate to keep him as part of our team.

“I think it’s difficult for me to ever give 100 per cent clarity on any player, I’d never do that. All I can say is Alex is happy at Newcastle, he loves the players, the staff, the team. I’ve never had any issue with him and I’m confident he’s going to be here at the start of the season.

“Expect him to travel to Singapore? Absolutely, yeah.”

On the rumours and impact of the media, Howe continued, also explaining why he can’t give guarantees on Isak’s future – or anyone else’s for that matter:

“For any player that’s not an easy thing to deal with (speculation) and not an easy thing to understand when you’re fielding calls and messages from players and people asking you all sorts, because the media now is so strong and the media message goes far and wide.”

“I’d never give a guarantee about anybody (staying) because I’ve been in football long enough to know I could end up looking silly. But, the desire from everybody to keep him is as strong as it could be. Fingers crossed that will happen for us.”

A bold decision by Howe to leave him out entirely, and this will no doubt just inspire the likes of Liverpool fans to believe they’re edging closer to signing Isak.

But it shows that he has the player’s best interests in mind and that he wants them fully focused on the game even at this stage of the season.