Alexander Isak and Newcastle United fans.
Can you believe it?
Is it really not even five months since the 2024/25 season ended, a season that for almost every Newcastle United fan who witnessed it was the best in living memory.
Winning a trophy and qualifying for the Champions League via a top five finish in the Premier League.
When last season ended at St James’ Park on May 25, 2025, who could have predicted what would come next with Alexander Isak?
In the build-up to the end of Champions League qualifying, Alexander Isak scored with a late penalty in Brighton to give United a point. The Swedish forward then played well in the 2-0 home win over Chelsea before injury ruled him out of Arsenal’s matchday squad as United lost 1-0.
On the final day of the season, Alexander Isak contributed next to nothing as Newcastle lost 1-0 to Everton, although he was far from the only one anonymous that day, as Man U saved us and ensured that we, not Villa, would finish fifth and play Champions League football.
Last night Alexander Isak played in the Champions League.
This is what his manager, Arne Slot, NOT Eddie Howe, had to say after the 5-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt:
“Hugo Ekitike had a big chance and he scored.
“Alexander Isak got a few. Unfortunately he didn’t score.
“He (Alexander Isak) had to leave at half-time because he felt a bit in his groin. That’s a shame.”
“I’ve said it many times, it’s such a difficult balance to find with a player who has missed three months. You bring him in slowly, you bring him in slowly. People might argue with me too if you can’t play him more or more often, not longer. Now we’ve played him for the second time in three days and unfortunately he had to go, so let’s hope for the best. But it’s not an easy balance to find when a player has been out for so long.”
Alexander Isak did not score (again) and suffered a groin injury (again).
As Arne Slot said: that’s a shame.
Yes, what a shame really.
I see countless people, especially glory-hunting Liverpool fans online who would no doubt struggle to find Merseyside on a map…, challenging Newcastle United fans to keep talking about Alexander Isak now that he is no longer our player. Besides experts and journalists, I also see many Newcastle United fans saying that we should forget Alexander Isak, that we should all move on.
Well, we’ve moved on, we’ve moved on from worshiping Big Nick Woltemade, who has made a great start at Newcastle United.
Scoring five goals in seven so far AND seems like an absolute class achievement when it comes to being a TEAM player. As the saying goes: there is no I in TEAM. Big Nick’s combination play and selfless work were excellent. The fluid team movements that led to Anthony Gordon goals against Barcelona and Benfica saw Woltemade at the heart of those movements with beautiful one-touch layoffs.
There is only one word for Alexander Isak
However, part of Alexander Isak’s transition is multi-faceted.
There is certainly no forgiveness for his behavior, and why should we forget that?
That one word for Alexander Isak that all Newcastle United fans should keep in mind is…
Schadenfreude
As Nick Woltemade, or even Malick Thiaw, might tell you, schadenfreude is the “pleasure one gets from someone else’s misfortune.”
This is where we are with Alexander Isak.
I would argue that it is the duty of all Newcastle United fans to take the utmost pleasure from Alexander Isak’s ‘accident’.
An accident that he definitely brought upon himself.
If Alexander Isak had continued to train and play for Newcastle United throughout the summer and the early weeks of the season, quietly informing the NUFC hierarchy behind the scenes of his wish/intention, and then pushing for a transfer in the very final stages of the summer transfer window, Newcastle United fans would have regretted losing one of their best players, but they would have made peace with it. The fact that he played at St James’ Park for three seasons, doing well for us, helped him achieve so many victories on the pitch and continued to do so until his departure.
Instead, he lit a bonfire and threw his three seasons at Newcastle United on it, then watched and watched it burn for a few months.
The thing is, when people light fires, there can be unintended consequences. Like the wind changing direction and the flames moving towards the one who lit the bonfire.
How I enjoyed these gloating flames blowing back at Alexander Isak.
Bonfire Night is just around the corner and it looks like it could be much further before they see their record £130 million start in a match again.
I burst out laughing when I heard Arne Slot talk last night, who knows if this is a real physical groin injury that the Liverpool player has suffered, or more of a groin injury in a mental sense, where Alexander Isak may not have felt like going on the field for a while, as we may have experienced when he was at Newcastle United.
Either way, we can enjoy what’s happened so far since Alexander Isak lit that original bonfire back in July.
Liverpool and Sweden have played seventeen competitive matches since then (including Liverpool’s Community Shield loss to Palace, another defeat at Wembley…).
Perhaps surprisingly, Alexander Isak has played in eleven of those seventeen matches for club and country this season, starting seven times and coming off the bench four times. Since May 4, 2025, Alexander Isak has indeed scored one goal and that was against second-tier Southampton.
If you can’t enjoy the gloating of today’s Alexander Isak, who will go much further than six months with just that one goal against Southampton, when can you enjoy someone else’s misfortune?
We must not forgive or forget that Alexander Isak deliberately sabotaged Newcastle United’s start to the season, causing so much stress and trouble for Eddie Howe, his former NUFC teammates and his former fans.
Isak’s selfish actions have directly contributed to Sweden’s 2026 World Cup final hopes going up in smoke, while Liverpool’s recent run of four straight defeats leaves Liverpool without blame.
In fact, I could almost laugh that Liverpool won 5-1 against Eintracht Frankfurt last night, while countless other Liverpool players found the net, unlike the fire starter.
The truth is that Liverpool have an excellent striker who is hitting the ground running and scoring a lot of goals.
After leaving him out to accommodate Alexander Isak, Arne Slot tried to play Isak and a recalled Hugo Ekitike in the same team, but it’s hard to see this continuing as Salah will certainly play most of the games.
By the time Alexander Isak gets over his latest groin injury, there is a good chance that Ekitike will be unable to drop himself.
Interesting to see what Arne Slot and Liverpool do next with a Premier League record £130m signing a very long contract, earning him £15m+ per year (£300,000+ per week). The fickle Liverpool fans appear to have already turned against their record deal, the days when they prided themselves on stealing Alexander Isak away from the Newcastle United fans are now becoming a distant memory.
Or maybe not, because it is our duty as Newcastle United fans to not only remind Alexander Isak of his behavior and the impact it has had on him, but also to remind Liverpool fans to be careful what they wish for when it comes to their own behavior.
#word #perfect #Alexander #Isak