Former Newcastle United midfielder Didi Hamann has warned his old club they won’t be able to keep hold of Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon unless they are regularly in the Champions League.
Isak and Gordon have formed a deadly partnership at Newcastle this season. Isak has hit 21 goals while Gordon’s scintillating wing play has seen him hit double figures in all competitions.
The duo’s form has attracted attention from elsewhere. Liverpool almost signed Gordon last summer, although the winger has since penned a new deal at St James’ Park. Isak, meanwhile is probably the hottest striker in the world right now with Barcelona, Arsenal, paris St Germain and Liverpool all coveting him.
He’s a Newcastle player, however, and has another years left on his contract. Newcastle have no intention of selling him and have slapped a £150m price tag on his head to ward off suitors, while stating their intention to offer him a new contract in the summer. As chief executive Darren Eales said this week: “We are focused on keeping those key players.”
That won’t stop a summer of speculation again, however. And while Newcastle remain out of Europe’s pemier competition, they always run the risk of having their top players wanting to move to a club that is playing in it, given a footballer’s career is short.
Hamman, asked about whether Newcastle need to qualify for the Champions League to keep the duo, said: “In this case, if you don’t play there one more season, maybe the players say, yeah, that’s fine. The best players want to play in the Champions League, so I think clubs smell blood now.
“They [Newcastle] were there last season. Obviously, the penalty in Paris which kind of knocked him out, which shouldn’t have been given, which wasn’t a penalty.
“There might be a player like Isak who says in the summer, well, if you don’t play Champions League, then I’ve got to move on because to win the Champions League, you’ve got to be in it. And they might be able to keep him for a season if they’re not in it. But the Champions League would make things a lot easier because then you’re in a strong position you might be able to extend one or two contracts.
“And I think these two players are really for that. For the Newcastle team, they’ve been absolutely brilliant. No surprise there’s a lot of clubs interested in them.
“Gordon was heavily linked with the move to Liverpool, wasn’t he? Isak, the whispers don’t stop about him and apparently Liverpool, as well as Arsenal, are registered with an interest. I think every big club would be interested in it if they could get him.”
Asked if Newcastle carry on the progress they made in the last two, three, four years, could he see them as a Premier League winner, Hamman, speaking to Prime Casino, said: “Potentially. They’ve got a lot of very good players.
“If you look at Liverpool and Arsenal, at the moment they are behind 15-17 points, which is probably about right. Then you need to see what happens, whether the Saudis are capable of spending money, whether their financial fair play hampers what they want to spend. I think they’re on a good path.
“I think it would be huge for the club to grow, for the players to grow. It would be vitally important to get in the Champions League because I think this is where you gain experience when you play against the best teams. This is where players get better and you get confidence and you say, well, if you can compete with PSG and compete with the likes of Barcelona, we’ve got to go to the next step.”
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