Why Newcastle United Shouldn’t Be Worried About Alexander Isak’s Form

Travelling to the AMEX Stadium to face Brighton and Hove Albion on Sunday was always going to be a tough proposition for Newcastle United, as it looked to maintain its Champions League qualification hopes.

With home matches against Chelsea, the club directly behind them in the Premier League table after its 3-1 win over newly-crowned champions Liverpool, and Everton to come, Newcastle’s destiny is in its own hands.

But having never won at Brighton in the top flight, fears of a costly result were rife, especially after losing 4-1 to another rival, Aston Villa, two weeks ago. Alexander Isak’s late penalty rescued a draw for the Magpies after Yankuba Minteh, a former Newcastle winger who was sold last summer without playing a competitive match, opened the scoring for the home side. It was a moment of huge relief; in the context of the match, despite an impressive performance overall with domination, the draw was a welcome one for Newcastle, which maintains control over its own destiny.

Coach Eddie Howe spoke afterwards about the strength of Isak’s character to level the scores after having a quiet game until that point.

“I’ve not been there myself [taking a pressure penalty]

, so I can’t put myself in his shoes,” Howe said of Isak.

“But I can only imagine the process he is going through and then he has to stop, and that’s why he did very well because it would be very, very easy to miss that moment. But he didn’t.

“He’s got that ruthless mentality to scoring goals. And that’s where you really lean on those type of players. To have the coolness of mind to just take a step back and go, ‘right, this is what I need to do’ and deliver it for the team.

“It was a brilliant penalty in a big moment because we needed something from the game. Losing the game would have dented us.”

Yet a lot of the discourse surrounding Isak at the moment among Newcastle fans is quite negative. Many are concerned that his impact on games has dwindled since the Carabao Cup final win over Liverpool on March 16, and question why that is.

It comes after a strong run of games since December, when the Swede was hitting the headlines after every game through his goals and overall play; at the moment, he is much more peripheral. In the first half at Brighton, he failed to have a single touch in the opposition box, and in truth it is merely a progression of a pattern.

Isak is being stopped deliberately

Why is Isak not as heavily involved as he has been before? The most common belief is that he is carrying a injury. He has been known to struggle with groin problems and there have been suggestions that he is managing one right now, having had trouble with it in recent weeks. Howe has insisted he is fully fit, but the club is also far more conscious of his fitness because of his importance to the team. After the win over Ipswich last week, Howe suggested that Isak is becoming a victim of his own success; because of the impact he had over the winter, opposition teams are planning to mark him a lot closer now.

Isak thrives off space, and over the past month or two, he has been starved of it, making it hard for him to play with his trademark freedom. Fans have noticed his runs have been less effective in recent games; he is the sort of player who doesn’t get attracted to the ball. but rather finds positions and waits for it to come to him, or drops deep to become part of the build up. It is no coincidence he is not being found as often in dangerous areas when teams are now so focussed on stopping him.

Extra surveillance has also led to more space for teammates, with the likes of Jacob Murphy and Harvey Barnes profiting with their own good form.

But he has still contributed, scoring goals against Brighton, Ipswich, Crystal Palace and Brentford, and setting up Sandro Tonali for a crucial, yet wonderful, goal against Manchester United. All of those matches, except Sunday, ended in wins.

It the sign of an elite striker that even when not at their best, they remain a threat and decisive, as Isak was with his penalty at Brighton.

Few players have been as good as he has for Newcastle in any year, and this one could be the best yet. His contribution has been seismic, but even he will have difficult spells. As Howe has said, players go through that regularly, but it is nothing to worry about.

In fact, if he is still scoring at the bad times, that should be celebrated.