Liverpool would love to sign Alexander Isak from Newcastle United in 2025, but that is not going to happen.
While Liverpool are huge admirers of the 25-year-old and are eager to bring in a new striker, Newcastle are not selling Isak.
There are no plans to let him go. Instead, Newcastle plan to extend Isak’s contract. That would definitively end Liverpool’s hope of signing him this summer, despite already having basically no chance of striking a deal.
Like many clubs, their best chance of signing Isak was before the Magpies got him in August 2022. Incredibly, it has now been claimed that Liverpool actually decided against bringing in the Sweden international.
Alexander Isak playing for Newcastle United against Everton in the final game of the 2024/25 Premier League season.
Photo by George Wood/Getty Images
Why Liverpool did not sign Alexander Isak in 2022
That is according to Liverpool’s former director of research Ian Graham, who has spoken to the Financial Times about the power that Jurgen Klopp had over transfers during his time at Anfield.
Graham notes that Klopp decided that Liverpool should sign Darwin Nunez ahead of Isak in the summer of 2022.
“Jurgen created a lot of success for the club, so it’s understandable why it moved in that direction,” he said.
“In 2022, he signed Darwin Nunez instead of Alexander Isak. Both players, if you look at top young centre-forwards in Europe, they would be number one and two — or two and three but [Erling] Haaland was going to [Manchester] City and out of our price range.
MORE NEWCASTLE STORIES
“Jurgen preferred Nunez. It would be very churlish of me to say, ‘it’s terrible that Jurgen had his choice’, when in the past Jurgen had been persuaded by me and my colleagues of a different choice.
“And it was still the case that we signed good players — in Nunez’s case, one of the best young strikers in Europe.”
How Alexander Isak has compared to Darwin Nunez
After Liverpool bought Nunez for an initial £64million, Newcastle swooped in to land Isak for £63million, including add-ons. He became Newcastle’s most expensive signing ever.
The Premier League suddenly had two more marquee strikers, but one has done a lot better than the other. Fortunately for Newcastle United, it is Isak who has thrived on English shores.
Since joining the Magpies for a club-record fee, Isak has scored 62 goals in 109 appearances in all competitions. He has been relentless in front of goal, finding the net more than 20 times in back-to-back Premier League campaigns. That is something that even Alan Shearer did not do during his Newcastle United career.
As for Nunez, he has scored 40 goals in 143 Liverpool appearances. He averages slightly more than one goal every four games, whereas Isak is averaging more than one goal every two games.
Alexander Isak 109 appearances 62 goals 0.57 goals per game
Darwin Nunez 143 appearances 40 goals 0.28 goals per game
The numbers back up Klopp’s blunder, as does the fact that Liverpool are now trying to replace Nunez with Isak. Unfortunately for them and to the delight of Toon fans, Isak is going nowhere this summer.