A Genuine Mystery That Can't Be Unpacked 🤔

Greetings from Yorkshire!

Rory Smith writes: This is a slightly different part of Yorkshire to normal, though: I’m spending this week at what counts as a beach, by British standards, as a restorative after racing around chasing the Club World Cup for 10 days. People don’t say this often enough, but New York and Whitby really do have very little in common.

There were four key ingredients to our plan: peace, quiet, fish and chips. We’ve managed to fulfill the last two, but the peace and quiet has been a little bit more elusive. I think we’re all long past the point where we know that the transfer market is not just a central part of soccer’s appeal but almost a whole separate pastime, an intersection of sport and business that you can follow from your phone, for free.

And it seems obvious to say that taking exception to that is a bit pompous. Still, such is the permanent noise around player trading that it takes something special to catch my attention these days. Fortunately (or unfortunately, from a parenting point of view), the last week has produced one such story: a genuine mystery that I can’t quite unpack. I’m hoping writing it all down will help me find the all-important signal…

Rory

The Riddle of Alexander Isak 🤔

Even after almost two weeks of fairly fevered speculation, the actual facts of the matter remain scarce.

We know that, about 10 days ago, Newcastle United had some degree of confidence that Hugo Ekitiké, the Eintracht Frankfurt striker, might be about to move to St. James’ Park. We know that, not a lot more than 24 hours later, the club had withdrawn from negotiations after it became clear that the 23-year-old intended to join Liverpool.

We know that, at some point over the weekend, Liverpool duly agreed to a fee for Ekitiké, one which would take the champions’ summer spending above the $400 million mark, with at least six weeks of the transfer window remaining. The Frenchman agreed to a six-year contract, flew in for his medical, and was already slated to join his new teammates on their pre-season tour of Asia by the end of this week.

We also know that Arsenal is currently on the verge of signing Viktor Gyokeres, the Sporting CP forward; that Chelsea has already added João Pedro and future Everton loanee Liam Delap to its ranks; we know that Manchester United is not in the Champions League and that Tottenham does not habitually break the British record for transfers.

We know that the only three teams outside the Premier League and Saudi Arabia who might conceivably pay more than $150 million for a player – Real Madrid, Paris St-Germain and, at a push, Bayern Munich – all have a full complement of strikers. 

And we know, finally, that Eddie Howe, the Newcastle manager, decided on Saturday that Alexander Isak was not in the right frame of mind to feature for his team in a pre-season friendly against Celtic because of all the speculation surrounding his future. 

The intrigue, of course, is in how that final piece in the summer’s most enigmatic puzzle fits with the rest. How, precisely, did a week in which nobody made a bid for Alexander Isak, nobody went public with their interest in or admiration for Alexander Isak, and two teams in fact went so far as to sign players who are not Alexander Isak lead to Alexander Isak needing to take some time off to get his head straight?

That may sound naive. To be clear: Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea (as well as many others) would all dearly love to sign Isak. It seems reasonable to assume that one or more of those clubs might have made it known to his representatives that, should he ever decide to leave Newcastle, they would be more than happy to employ him.

They might even have given a sort of ballpark figure of how much he could expect to earn should that come to pass. Just because they have not (yet) felt moved to approach Newcastle with a formal offer does not mean Isak has not spent the last few days – or weeks, or months – attempting to decide what he might want his future to look like. And that is a significant decision. A footballer’s career is short, and fickle. Isak will only get one shot at this. It is important he gets it right.

But at the same time, he has never really had a decision to make, not a material one. Newcastle’s stance, in both public and private, has not changed all summer: Isak is not for sale. Howe’s team has just won a first trophy for seven decades. It has qualified for the Champions League for the second time in three years. Now is not the time to sell its star asset. 

Howe, at least, believes Isak understands that. There might have been no progress on a new contract at St. James’ Park, one that might reflect his newfound status as one of the best players in the league, but Howe has never wavered in his belief that the Swede will remain at Newcastle. Isak is very happy at the club, he said over the weekend. 

Just as importantly, it would seem that Isak’s potential suitors believe Newcastle means it. If any of them have made contact, they have taken the club’s stance that he is off limits – that there is no price at which they would consider selling this summer – both seriously and literally. There have been no bids. They have moved on to alternative targets.

And yet this does not feel like the complete picture. Because of that, because it becomes obvious that there are things we do not know, the tendency has been to make up for the absence of facts with good, old-fashioned conjecture, speculation and self-interested interpretation. Maybe this has all played out well for Newcastle, forcing Liverpool’s hand into buying Ekitiké and therefore keeping hold of Isak? (This view was more popular before Howe omitted his best player from the game against Celtic.)

Or maybe it is bad for Newcastle: not only does the club miss out on a (bittersweet) windfall that could have transformed its squad, but there is also the possibility that Isak has, to a greater or lesser extent, been unsettled by a move that has not materialized. Maybe it is both. Maybe it is neither. 

None of it, though, really comes any closer to answering the question that Howe unwittingly – and probably unavoidably – posed. The facts we have indicate that Isak has not asked to leave Newcastle, that Newcastle has made it clear he is not for sale, and that those clubs who might have signed him have moved, instead, for other players. Those are the things we know. It’s odd that it feels as though the things we do not might be more important.

The Art of Selling 💰

The dizzying scale of Liverpool’s spending so far this summer is not necessarily out of character; under Fenway Sports Group’s ownership, the club has always been willing to shell out large sums of money – in both fees and salaries – on players it deems transformative. Alisson was the world’s most expensive goalkeeper (for a few days). Virgil Van Dijk cost a premium sum for a defender. 

The idea that Liverpool tends toward the tightfisted in the transfer market is rooted, really, in the club’s (largely) consistent refusal not to buy for the sake of buying. Liverpool, more than most, would rather wait for the right player than to commit a reasonable proportion of a fixed budget to a player just to fill a gap. It is why, partially, the club has the money for purchases like Florian Wirtz.

But it is also because of the club’s other great strength in the transfer market: Liverpool sells well. It is an underrated, and rare, quality. That applies not just when it has to extract a substantial sum from a rival – Liverpool has been spending the money for Philippe Coutinho for several decades now – but when it comes to finding teams to pay smaller amounts for academy graduates and squad members. Bournemouth once paid $8 million for a full-back called Brad Smith. He is now at FC Cincinnati.

Ekitiké may not be the last player Liverpool sign this summer. There might well be a central defender and, depending on what happens to Luis Díaz and Darwin Nuñez, at least one more forward. But by the end, it is a reasonable guess that a couple hundred million dollars – maybe more – will have been put down in the accounts receivable column, too. That takes no little skill.

What I’ve Been Writing and Reading ✍️📚

• Not approved by the Dubai tourist board…

• My colleague George Simms is having quite a sporting summer. 

• There is a company that makes zippers. Obviously that makes sense, but it’s fascinating.

The Best Kit-Drop of the Pre-Season 🍫🍊

Now far be it from me to suggest that any of this newsletter’s readers might have too much time on your hands, but…well, let’s see what Ben Huebner has been up to, shall we?

“David Goldblatt entitled his history of global football “The Ball Is Round,” a nod to the game’s beautiful simplicity,” he starts his email, intellectually rigorously enough. “So, too, one might ruminate upon how the small ball of precious joy that is a Terry’s Chocolate Orange reflects the world not as it is, but the world as it could be.”

(Yes, agreed: made of chocolate and easily dividable into segments, as long as you knock it quite hard against a table.)

“I don’t remember when and where I first tried this modest miracle bomb of confectionery delight, I remember who gave it to me: a very dear matriarchal family friend. Though she has since passed on, on the rare occasions when I come across a chocolate orange, part of my brain always lights up with the memory of her love and affection. Every time you mention what I previously thought of as a fun winter holiday novelty treat, but now think of as the pinnacle of Rory’s fine dining recs, it cracks me up, like the very wedges comprising a Terry’s Chocolate Orange upon smashing with the thunderous force of the hand of God.”

(It feels at this point as though Ben is letting himself get a little carried away, but he’s talking about chocolate oranges here, so I’ll stick with him.)

“And so, I felt compelled to mock up a football kit for a Men In Blazers/Terry’s Chocolate Orange crossover, because who would not vie for such an illustrious sponsor?”

There are some flourishes Ben would like to point out: the brown shorts, which he believes might have a practical benefit; the use of the “liminal space” at the back of the shorts, in honor of John Green, and of course the tweed sleeves, which are, he says, “the bee’s knees.” Personally, what I like most about this is the overall effect that it has been drawn by a six-year-old just getting to grips with MS Paint. I would, though, wear it, 100 percent. 

Thanks to Ben for his efforts – if you have any kit designs you want to throw my way, or questions about football, about chocolate oranges, about where to eat in a European city (other cities are available), then please do send them to [email protected]. I’m all ears. In the meantime, maybe the next few days will give us all a bit of clarity on what is going on with Alexander Isak.

Have a great week, and thanks for reading,

Rory