Analysis: Fans show anger at Isak with transfer in balance

Sky Sports News’ reporter Keith Downie at Villa Park:

“The growing sense of frustration and anger from the Newcastle fans was evident at the end of the game when they sang ‘There’s only one greedy *******’ as the players left the field.

“Eddie Howe had asked the fans to back the team. They left it till the end to make their feelings clear.

“Howe said afterwards the door is still open for Alexander Isak, and that only one person can give a resolution to the situation, and they need one. However, the strength of feeling from the Newcastle fans would, for me, make it even more difficult for Isak to return.

“Could their minds be changed? Time will tell. But I felt watching that today, it was such a sad situation. Newcastle had all their players available, apart from their talisman. With Isak in the team, they would have won.

“The supporters are upset, they’re angry. They don’t understand why a player earning £150,000 per week can be so unhappy. They would give their right arm to be the No 9 for Newcastle, and they can’t get their heads around why Isak wouldn’t want to be, or why he would conduct himself the way he has.

“There are young kids with ‘Isak 14’ shirts everywhere you look in Newcastle. There’s fans with Isak tattooed on their arm because he scored in the cup final.

“He reduced tens of thousands of them to tears with that goal against Liverpool. Who would have thought that, just a few months later, he would have angered them the way he has?

“Where do Newcastle go from here? It’s hard to tell. I still think it’s 50/50 whether he leaves or not. If he stays, it feels like this circus will carry on and that’s something Howe will not want. He said today he’s made it perfectly clear what his stance is – he wants Isak back. But he’s going to have to do the mother of all man-management jobs on Isak to get him back firing.

“If I had been given a pound for every time I had been asked what’s happening with Isak, I could have bought him myself.”