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8 months ago
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Finally Eddie Howe has seen the likes of Jacob Murphy, Elliot Anderson, Harvey Barnes, Alexander Isak and Joe Willock return to the matchday squad in recent weeks.
Against Wolves on Saturday, the Newcastle United Head Coach at last seeing the return to a point off having a number of positive options on the bench, as well as a significantly improved starting eleven.
All of the players named above have contributed since their return but I think quite clearly there is one returning player who is especially important to United’s chances of a late run of form this season…
Eddie Howe reflecting on the return of Alexander Isak to the team and why he has been so missed:
“He is an outstanding player.
“Our only disappointment this year, is that we haven’t had him fit and available for all the games, because he is a match winner and is capable of doing a bit of everything in that role.
“He can also drift positions, he is technically excellent.
“Really pleased with the goal [against Wolves] because he’s come back from another minor injury, but that just stopped the rhythm and momentum he was in, because he was in a good period of form.
“Hopefully he can rediscover that form very quickly now.”
If you doubt just how outstanding Alexander Isak is, just look at these stats from BBC Sport.
They are the nine players with the most Premier League goals (figure on the left) and then the number of shots each player has had, then their success rate with those shots:
18 Erling Haaland (74 shots – goal conversion 24%)
16 Ollie Watkins (67 shots – goal conversion 24%)
15 Mo Salah (54 shots – goal conversion 28%)
14 Dominic Solanke (59 shots – goal conversion 24%)
14 Jarrod Bowen (48 shots – goal conversion 29%)
13 Bukayo Saka (45 shots – goal conversion 29%)
13 Son Heung-min (43 shots – goal conversion 30%)
11 Alexander Isak (33 shots – goal conversion 33%)
11 Phil Foden (48 shots – goal conversion 23%)
As you can see, Alexander Isak is the most deadly of all, scoring with exactly one in every three shots, better than Haaland and the rest.
Working on the same success rate, if Alexander Isak had been able to have 74 shots as Haaland has had, a 33% conversion rate would have given the NUFC striker 24 goals. As opposed to the 18 Haaland (did you see that open goal he missed from two yards out against Man U yesterday?!!!) has scored in the Premier League.
When Alexander Isak has been out injured, I have seen some laughable comments. Some people claiming that Newcastle United bought a striker who had always been injury prone.
It is so ridiculous what certain people claim as ‘facts’ that are anything but.
I think Newcastle United have just been really unlucky that Alexander Isak has had these injury issues since coming to the club.
The claims that he was injury prone at Real Sociedad before moving to St James’ Park…
Well, in the three seasons in La Liga out of 114 matches, Alexander Isak was in the matchday squad 109 times, only missing for five of them. Plus he was suspended for one of those five when he was missing!

 
