Liverpool Bid £120m For Isak, With Ekitiké To Newcastle the 'Go' Sign

The chain I've been expecting seems to be fully linked; and lots more transfer analysis

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For about a month I’ve been speculating that if Hugo Ekitiké joins Newcastle (or before that, if they had landed João Pedro), and Liverpool did not bid for either (despite liking them both), it suggests Newcastle may then sell Alexander Isak to Liverpool.

But who knows? It seems to me that Newcastle are set to outspend their c.£150m PSR limit, and would have two similar strikers, who could play together, but where one could also replace the other; from the bench (which seems an expensive backup) or full-time.

As I was about to post this article, news broke of a Liverpool bid for Isak, and even though Ekitiké to the Geordies hasn’t been agreed, it all feels connected.

Of course, it could be that Newcastle want both players, but that has its own flaws. They’re claiming Liverpool are trying to unsettle Isak, but they won’t want to make it look like they’re happy to lose their star player, even if their plan all along was to sell their star player (to fund a rebuild). They have to play hardball, publicly at least.

For the Reds, Luis Díaz seems to want out, and Liverpool are not going to give him away; so that also means Anthony Gordon becomes a possibility again if Newcastle need to sell players (and one is not Isak), even if Cody Gakpo has improved, and Florian Wirtz often played from the left in Germany.

A new left-field transfer link for the Reds is Jean-Philippe Mateta, a player I’ve liked for a long time, who doesn’t fit the usual age-range of a signing, but if Isak genuinely isn’t for sale or cannot be got the £120m bid, and Liverpool don’t move for Ekitiké or any of his peers, I can see the logic behind Mateta (as an underrated player with lots of attributes), as I’ll get onto later in the piece, especially if it was with another attacker arriving, too.

The saddest but also tragically necessary decision this summer is what to do to ‘replace’ Diogo Jota. You can do all the wonderful human things like retire his number (and the crowd and players at the end at Preston was beautiful), but do you just go into the season a striker light, when you were already looking for one, and to offload others?

The outpouring at the end of the Preston game (as well as the Preston fans joining in Diogo’s song) was another reminder than the person is irreplaceable; and the bond between fans and the players is stronger than ever.

It’s felt like we’ve had months of the players staring up at the fans, as songs rained down; in the greatest joy, then the deepest despair. Yet all a celebration, too: of success, of hard work, and of the player we loved.

You can retire Saint Diogo’s number, but you can’t retire the need for a certain number of players. The best way to honour those no longer with us is to live your best lives, and in a way they would have been proud of.

Jota was 28, Díaz will be 29 in a few months, and Mateta has just turned 28. Isak is 26.

Another factor in preseason is the emergence of young players, and the possible step-jump in their development.

I remain a fan of Ben Doak as I have since seeing his first youth game for the Reds aged 16, but will he want another year as Mo Salah’s backup, at best? I also rate Rio Ngumoha extremely highly, but in this piece I’ll also cover the increasing risks to young players’ physical and mental health, in a game that has got harder, faster and more scrutinised than ever before, and where age-related injuries are skyrocketing.

I’m more interested now in the players aged 21/22, like Conor Bradley, and how they are when emerging out of the growth spurts and turning from boys to men. (As opposed to turning to Boyz II Men.)

Then, the signs of promise in the first preseason game from players heading for the door before the sudden loss of Jota, and how one may now stay, unless Liverpool still buy the attacker they were going to buy, and another to replace Saint Diogo.

No ins and outs have been sealed in the past week, but it feels like loads are in the pipeline. Other clubs are getting things going, as Liverpool sit off after their initial spending spree, and look to sell, then buy again.

I’ve also been doing some research that covers years’ worth of data, to work out how players like Isak, Mateta and another linked player, Marc Guéhi, have improved, and may continue to improve.

So, a lot to get through in this piece, in the most confusing, heartbreaking and possibly the busiest summer I can recall in decades.

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