‘They’ve got form’ - Liverpool slammed for ‘unsettling’ Newcastle United’s £150m talisman

Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan has hit out at Liverpool for unsettling Alexander Isak.

Newcastle United are almost two weeks into a transfer saga that has rocked Tyneside. Isak - valued at £150million - downed tools by refusing to join the club’s pre-season tour of Asia.

The official line from the Magpies claimed Isak was nursing a thigh injury but his true intentions have since been revealed. Liverpool had an opening offer worth around £110million rejected on Friday.

The Swede returned to Newcastle’s training ground yesterday but was not joined by his manager or teammates. They had only arrived back in the UK from South Korea earlier that morning.

Simon Jordan on Alexander Isak saga

The saga is set to rumble on over the coming days as Newcastle have not made progress on a replacement. As it stands, the Magpies await a response from Benjamin Sesko after submitting a £65million bid to RB Leipzig.

Speaking on the saga, ex-Palace chief Jordan slammed Liverpool for bulldozing their way to the negotiating table. However, he also suggested it may be in Newcastle’s best interests to reduce the record-breaking asking price.

“The player has made his position clear,” Jordan told talkSPORT. “Newcastle hold his registration and, if Newcastle are prepared to be bold, and I think that they possibly will be until Liverpool at some point (meet the asking price). If someone knocks on your door and says that they want to buy your house, you don't accept their first offer, do you?

“Obviously, Newcastle don't think £110million (is enough) for one of the best centre-forwards in world football in a position where there’s a real dearth of opportunity. I want Newcastle to make Liverpool pay as much as they possibly can. They (Liverpool) have unsettled the player. One way or another they've done it and they've got form for it.

“They did it with Virgil van Dijk, so let's not get around the fact that they're using their influence one way or another. Make them pay whatever you want them to pay to a point where the player has to turn around and say to the club, ‘Come on now, you've got to be realistic’.

“If they get to £140million quid, which is enormous amounts of money, we're talking about preposterous amounts of money, then the player can have the right to possibly turn around and say, ‘All I want to do is leave, I am entitled to leave if I want to and I'm entitled to move on to another football club that I think is better for my future’. But I don't think you take Liverpool's offer and go, ‘Oh, gee, thanks very much. When can we have it?’”

Eddie Howe conversation expected

Jordan put the onus on Eddie Howe to have a conversation with the Toon hierarchy as he prepares for the upcoming campaign. He added: “If you're a grown-up manager, you're working with your chairman. You know your chairman doesn't want to sell this player. You don't want to sell this player.

“So are you jumping up and down saying, ‘Well, we both don't want to sell him, chairman, but somewhere along the line, someone's got to pee or get off the pot’. At what point do you push the envelope with your chairman and say, ‘I've got to know what my best XI is. I've got to know what challenges I've got in front of me’.

“Or are you sitting there entirely empathetic with the chairman's plight because it's your plight too? If you read the reports written by the North East reporters, then all you hear is disarray, carnage and chaos inside that football club.

“The challenge for a manager is at what point does he tell his chairman, ‘Look, chairman, I know you want to hold out for £150million and you might get it, but ultimately I need to build a squad. So, at this point, chairman, we've got to take an offer’.

“That's the conversation that becomes relatively fractious because my responsibility as an owner would be, ‘Hold on you, if I get £150million, who do you think is getting it? You are, for your playing squad’. That's the conversation that happens at some point.”

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