Liverpool FC Premier League Champions 25/26 - Talk /Gossip/Rumours

Tony Evan's piece was merely written to achieve the nonsense attention it's now getting, click bait journalism at it's best.

I actually thought it was a very weak statement they put out,so the player is for sale if the right conditions are met. This whole saga has been handled very poorly by Newcastle. A lot of Newcastle supporters are blaming Liverpool for the mess at their doorstep. At the end of the day liverpool will walk away from the situation if they have to,like the VVD scenario.

Newcastle can't sign anyone of note this summer and if Isak is still there in Sept then there is going to be resentment in the camp. Its not going to be a great environment. Will players want to go there in the future when they see this mess going on?

And yet in the same statement

"we have been clear that the conditions of a sale this summer have not transpired."

So which is it? Is he for sale or not? They are contradicting themselves in that statement.

And it worked…

Seems nonsense to me, he's basically telling Juve that they should be offended.

I'd have no time for grief chants or the likes, but the reference in the chant is clearly intended as weeping for losing Chiesa, that's the context and nothing else. To make it something else is just wrong IMHO. I hate the reference to 'woke nonsense', but this would seem to fit on this case.

every sky sports talking head on about Newcastle being in a position of strength…. Eh no lads. You’ve got a player on 150k a week whose value is being amortised down the length of his contract, and he doesn’t want to play.
Say he does get re-integrated, whatever that looks like, the minute he goes on a 2-3 game drought ‘oh his head is not in it’, ‘he doesn’t care’..

I think Newcastle are in a precarious position, either strong nor weak.

Gabriele Marcotti published an article yesterday detailing how FIFA's changes to Article 17 last year gives Isak leverage because he has completed 3 years of his contract with Newcastle.

If the club refuses to let him leave he can invoke Article 17 at the end of the domestic season and leave the club on July 1st 2026. A FIFA Tribunal would determine the compensation fee due to Newcastle based upon the remaining value of his contract, his value on Newcastle's books and the cost of signing a replacement player. A sports lawyer estimated that the compensation value would be in the region of £50-60m which the club might not receive for 18 months to 2 years depending on how long the tribunal would take to come to a judgement. Isak however would be free to sign for any club on July 1st.

I wasn't aware of the Article 17 rule, it's genius for players wanting out of the crazy length contracts that the likes of Chelsea are giving players.

It's actually been a thing for over 20 years but was unenforceable and never happened until the Lass Diarra ruling last year put focus on it and they started to talk about changes to it. The original goal was to introduce a 'protected period' of a contract that protected both sides from breaking it unilaterally, but outside that period it would be possible. This was a response to the Bosman ruling in the 90's

Championship Manager 2001/02 season is still known as one of the best versions of the management computer games. The ruling was known at the time but hadn't come into effect yet so the developers had to guess the effect of it when coding the game

It was pretty simple, after the first season of the game the ruling comes into effect, any player already with a contract at that point is unaffected and has to see out the rest of their contract.

But anyone you sign in the game after that date has a 'contract protected' status that stays as 'protected' for the first 3 years (or 2 years if he's older than 28). After the time elapses, the contract status becomes 'unprotected' and then in the game it works just like a release clause, any opposition club can buy out the remaining contract value. So if you are paid £2m a year and have 2 years left when your contract becomes unprotected, anyone can bid £4m to buy it out and the club can't refuse it.

In reality it never actually worked like that and people still play that game even now so developers literally had to patch it so that the contract protection status wasn't a factor because when you play it out it becomes a free for all with clubs bidding for players as soon as they become unprotected - you could just filter for players that are unprotected and sign whoever regardless of whether they're available for transfer or what their true value is.

I guess the game developers thought that's how it played out, and for years after I always wondered why clubs never did this if that regulation went into effect, but it seems like nobody really tried it as it was legally ambiguous and you needed a Diarra-like situation to bring it to a head.

There's also a clause where if you're not played in at least 10% of competitive games in a season you can leave on a free at the end of the season - again I don't think this has ever happened but it exists! That one is Article 15 and is 'Sporting Just Cause'

It's also relevant because if what Newcastle fans want happens - meaning they freeze out Isak to play in the reserves all year - he can leave with zero compensation due in July. (Doesn't apply if he refuses to play, only if the club don't play him)

I really don’t think what he’s doing is all that bad, or all that uncommon. Newcastle themselves have a player acting in a similar fashion this season. Gordon refused to train with Everton to push through his move there. Players have agitated to leave us, and agitated to join us.

I’m definitely saying this with the benefit of hindsight, but without those players pushing for moves we wouldn’t be where we are now. We were in a similar position to Newcastle when those players wanted to move, and when they did move, we reinvested well and improved again.

No player is irreplaceable, and if your club is being run well then they’ll be prepared to sell anyone as long as the valuation is met. Trying to hang on to unhappy players simply because the contract says you can benefits nobody in the long run. Even from the position we’re in we have had players wanting to leave, like Diaz/TAA, but as a club it was dealt with as well as could be.

Isak seems a little more desperate than the other cases as it’s apparent that Newcastle isn’t being run well at the minute. They’ve lost out on several targets that were incredibly unlikely for them anyway as there were other, more established CL clubs interested. Sesko choosing United says a lot about how footballers feel about Newcastles project.

So Isak wanting out isn’t surprising. Careers are short, and windows of availability to join a project like Liverpools are shorter still. Considering a player to be acting poorly because he signed a contract a few years ago is a bit unfair.

Yeah, when this all kicked off Liverpool apparently said they were willing to break the British transfer record and the 110 offer did not do that.

I can see it happening after next Monday night, we'll offer the 120 or 125 plus add ons and it will be accepted and the next day Newcastle will get Wissa.

Next summer window will be all about Olise. He has a release clause apparently. City and Liverpool will be all over it.

That was the agent trying to pressure PSG into making a better offer in contract negotiations.

Would be funny if we bought Alvarez now instead of Isak. Isak is good but I don't think he's £150M good. £110-120 is already high.