Eddie Howe could be left with only one option as Alexander Isak's situation at Benton becomes more complex by the day
Lee Ryder follows Newcastle United home and away as our Chief Newcastle United Writer. Lee has reported on the Magpies from China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and across Europe. Covered England at Euro 2020 and Euro 2024.
Alexander Isak reacts during a game
Alexander Isak(Image: Serena Taylor, Newcastle United via Getty Images)
Eddie Howe has only had only endured one public fallout with a Newcastle United player up until this summer.
That particular situation unfolded when winger Ryan Fraser never appeared again after a stint as an unused substitute away to AFC Bournemouth in March 2023.
Fraser would be relegated to the reserves and never returned to the club's first-team training base at Benton and never play for the senior side again.
Back then, Howe explained to reporters: "I made the decision to concentrate on the players that are committed to Newcastle and for the benefit of the group I made that call."
Isak is hardly showing commitment right now and while he remains silent, only he can truly stand up whether he feels let down by a lack of a contract offer or failure to deliver what was promised or not.
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As we get close to the Premier League's big kick off, and with the Alexander Isak situation still unresolved, it may be a course of action that Howe ponders again as talk of Liverpool continues to float in the airwaves at Benton.
The big difference between this and Fraser, is that now the Isak saga has dragged on longer without him being sent to training with the Under-21s down at Little Benton.
Ryan Fraser of Newcastle United
Ryan Fraser had to train with United's reserves
Also, the unfortunate episode is layered with more complexities and, of course, is a much more high-profile story given Isak's status and price tag.
So far, Isak has trained alone after hours at Benton and barely seen his team-mates, even missing out on the team barbecue last week as Howe made a call that, judging by Isak's communication, he was not deemed ready to return to first-team action for the friendlies against Espanyol and Atletico Madrid.
Since then Newcastle have got on with preparations for the trip to Aston Villa and got on with recruitment in the transfer window, signing Malick Thiaw from AC Milan and pursuing Aston Villa's Jacob Ramsey.
The Isak situation is tougher than that of Fraser, or any other player that Howe has had a brush with since taking over as head coach.
At some stage Isak may still be Newcastle's best striker and despite leaks from his agent that he does not want to play for United again, Howe is capable of persuading him to return and Isak is intelligent enough to see that he could play his way back into contention to Liverpool.
In Howe, Newcastle also have a head coach with an incredible amount of emotional intelligence and what's also true is that this is the last thing the ex-Bournemouth manager wanted to unfold for Isak.
The plan was to get Isak back into training on the club's return from the Far East and re-integrate him to training. Has Howe been irked by Isak this summer?
Of course, and that was underlined when he told reporters in Seoul that he'd discovered Isak had trained alone in Spain "via the media" before then going on to state that players must: "Earn the right to train with the first-team".
As the situation continues to hang over Newcastle, it is now a question of when the door goes from being ajar for Isak to completely closed.
If Isak refuses to play for Newcastle and doesn't get his move to Liverpool, then the only place for him will be a stint at the reserve team training base.
There have been bigger names than Fraser who have been forced to train with the second string, such as Hatem Ben Arfa and Sylvain Marveaux, while the likes of Henri Saivet, Tim Krul, Jeff Hendrick, and Jack Colback all had stints at Little Benton.
So demotion to the reserves still appears to be an option for Isak while the other comparison to Fraser-gate is that 12 months ago, before the Scot was sold to Southampton, Newcastle's first home game was against the preferred employers of the star in question.
Newcastle pushed the deal through a few days after beating the Saints last year, and with Liverpool still monitoring Isak's situation, that could happen again this summer.
The prospect of Isak facing Newcastle at St James' Park for a Monday night game live on Sky Sports is TV gold for producers, but for Toon chiefs, it just feels unthinkable.