'A sour taste' - inside a summer like no other in Newcastle's history

Newcastle United sold Alexander Isak to Liverpool for a British record transfer fee

"Right until the end."

This was the mantra behind the scenes at Newcastle United long before a draining window finally shut.

And with good reason.

It was always going to be a breathless finale and so it proved as Newcastle sold Alexander Isak to Liverpool for a British record £125m but brought in Yoane Wissa in a £55m deal from Brentford.

There is relief on Tyneside that Newcastle have signed a proven Premier League forward in Wissa to ease the burden on record signing Nick Woltemade, who has never played for a club outside Germany.

But, after holding firm for so long, Newcastle have also lost one of the best strikers in the world to the champions on deadline day.

That felt like an unimaginable prospect to outsiders when Isak was bouncing up and down in a celebratory huddle as the Champions League anthem played out at St James' Park after Newcastle secured qualification on the final day of last season.

But this has been a summer like no other in the club's history.

Isak saga typifies draining window

Losing Isak had never been part of the plan, of course.

Newcastle want to one day compete with Liverpool for the biggest trophies rather than selling their best player to a side they defeated in the Carabao Cup final back in March.

In a statement, last month, Newcastle did not even foresee the conditions of sale being met as the saga dragged on weeks after Liverpool's opening £110m bid was rejected.

To give in on the final day sets a potential precedent - this is a player who had three years left on his contract - but the situation felt increasingly untenable.

Isak's absence had already cast a shadow over the club. Could the wantaway Swede really have been reintegrated if he did not get the move he desired in the final throes of the window? Was there a risk his value would only dwindle further if he stayed on the sidelines?

It certainly felt like there would be a long way back for Isak with the fanbase after the 25-year-old sat out the opening weeks of the campaign and released an explosive statement claiming that "change is in the best interests of everyone".

It was just last week that Newcastle fan Ian Cuthbertson vowed he would "never accept him again" while Mal Colledge said the "whole thing just leaves a sour taste".

Fellow supporter Suzanna Armstrong said "no-one is irreplaceable".

But Debra Woodall, wearing a commemorative home shirt to mark the day Isak helped Newcastle end a 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy, admitted it was going to be "hard to replace him".

"Hopefully they find someone who puts the ball in the back of the net," she said.

Wissa has form for doing that - no one scored more non-penalty goals (19) in the Premier League last season - while there is a belief within the club that Woltemade's qualities will translate to the top flight in time.

Newcastle's interest in Wissa had been well documented, after Brentford turned down two previous bids, but Woltemade's move was kept so under wraps that sources directly involved in the deal were even denying it was happening last week.

They said that Stuttgart would not sell - regardless of the buying club - following Bayern Munich's previous failed pursuit.

For context, a flight had been booked at the time to take Woltemade from Stuttgart to Tyneside for his medical.

Unlike high-profile bids for Hugo Ekitike, Benjamin Sesko and Joao Pedro, Newcastle had acted so swiftly and covertly that details only eventually leaked out when the deal was as good as done.

From the outside, the £69m move happened rapidly. Those involved even described it as "very quick". But this had been a long time coming for head coach Eddie Howe following a series of setbacks in his search for a centre-forward.

"Although it seems quick to you guys, it's not quick to us," Howe said. "It's slow, laboured, because you're in the hands of other people."

Those words could just so easily have been used to describe the window as a whole.

Howe had previously labelled last summer as the most difficult of his career after Newcastle struggled to make a major signing and dashed to sell Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh to avoid a breach of profit and sustainability rules (PSR).

Yet it was rather telling that Howe later referred to that bruising window as a "piece of cake" compared to these past few months.

Targeting players 'desperate' to join

Newcastle had set out to do business early.

But it got to the point where they could have put together an almighty five-a-side team of targets who went elsewhere.

It is understood that James Trafford, for instance, was "super excited" about the prospect of joining Newcastle, only for talks to become protracted with Burnley over the fee.

Manchester City went on to activate their buyback clause and matched Newcastle's offer for their former goalkeeper, who chose to return to Etihad Stadium.

A theme started to develop.

Although Benjamin Sesko's camp had "big respect" for Newcastle, and considered them a "great club with great people", those closest to the striker previously did not feel it was the "right moment" to move to St James' Park when the club first showed an interest in 2022.

History repeated itself once again last month when Sesko opted to join what he called a "historical club" in Manchester United.

Newcastle have their own tradition, of course, but they encountered a challenge going up against the established order for such players in the opening months of the window.

As well as the legacy factor - another target, Joao Pedro, cited growing up watching Chelsea winning titles - these clubs have superior income streams.

Manchester United (£364.7m) and Chelsea (£337.8m) were among five Premier League sides who splashed out more on salaries than Newcastle generated in revenue (£320.3m) in their most recently published accounts from 2023-24.

Newcastle had the eighth-largest wage bill in the same period and, after suffering a number of setbacks this summer, the club became even more determined to recruit players who were "desperate" to move.

It was noted how some of Newcastle's most successful signings under Howe fitted that description, including Dan Burn, Kieran Trippier and Bruno Guimaraes, who arrived when the club were in deep relegation trouble in 2022.

Three of Newcastle's most expensive additions this summer - Woltemade, Wissa and Anthony Elanga - did not think twice once they learned of the club's interest.

Malick Thiaw also did not require much convincing to follow in the footsteps of Sandro Tonali and leave AC Milan for Newcastle.

Germany defender Thiaw had been in a training camp in the Lake District a few weeks before his £35m move went through when the subject of Newcastle came up.

Paul Winsper, a high performance consultant, who previously worked for Newcastle, was on hand to offer his thoughts.

"We all stayed in the same house," Winsper said. "We joked about it - 'Come on. Join Newcastle!'

"He asked, 'What's it like?' I said, 'Amazing.'

"I lived in the US for 16 years and I had always had this yearning to come back to the North East and be back in my roots.

"It was great to be able to sell the North East a little bit to Malick and let him know what an amazing place it is. I later got a text from him saying, 'It's done. I'm in.'"

More boardroom changes on cards

This was one of a series of deals Newcastle agreed without a sporting director or CEO.

Sporting director Paul Mitchell left the club in June while CEO Darren Eales handed in his notice last autumn after being diagnosed with a chronic form of blood cancer.

So it fell to head of recruitment Steve Nickson and assistant head of recruitment Andy Howe to take on additional responsibilities alongside co-owner Jamie Reuben.

Given the upheaval at boardroom level, and the challenging start to the window, recruiting six first-team players felt like a distant prospect at one point.

And Eddie Howe was the first to admit that the absence of a sporting director and CEO created an "unusual dynamic" as Newcastle "tried to make the best of the situation".

Filling these positions will be crucial for the windows to come and Newcastle intend to do so having already hired a technical director, Sudarshan Gopaladesikan, to report into Mitchell's successor and lead the club's football data operations.

Mitchell's assertion that Newcastle's recruitment processes were "not fit for purpose" understandably dominated headlines a year ago, but he also made a nuanced point about how clubs who were even more data-informed prospered last summer.

That was not lost on Newcastle and it is understood the club's pursuit of Gopaladesikan stretched back to last autumn, but Atalanta did not want to lose their director of football intelligence.

Yet it was rather telling that Newcastle were prepared to wait until July for a figure who is "not your typical" technical director in the words of Steve Barrett, the vice-president of sports performance at Playermaker.

"He's one of the smartest people I've ever met," Barrett said. "His passion and enthusiasm for the game is relentless. He's a perfect fit for what Newcastle represents."

Gopaladesikan is only in his early thirties, but the American mathematician has already had spells at Atalanta and Benfica, and he also worked with Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund during his time as a product manager at Microsoft.

Given the intense competition Newcastle faced for top targets, this feels like a timely appointment - even if recruitment will be just one aspect of Gopaladesikan's wide-ranging role.

"There might be some eyebrows raised at certain kinds of targets but they will fit a really good specific model that may surprise the fans," Barrett said. "He can help find really good value in players that might not necessarily be the normal fit, but be hidden gems for Newcastle."

'Allows them to reinvest very well'

So where does this summer leaves Newcastle moving forward?

That question will be answered on the field in the coming weeks and months as Howe's side attempt to fight on four fronts following the additions of Woltemade, Wissa, Elanga, Thiaw, Jacob Ramsey and Aaron Ramsdale.

But what about off it?

Well, football finance expert Kieran Maguire has likened the sale of Isak to when Aston Villa sold Jack Grealish to Manchester City in 2021 for what was also a British record at the time, a £100m deal.

"Newcastle were out of the woods from a PSR point of view, but this will certainly help them satisfy the Uefa squad cost rules because player sale profits go into the equation when you're working out your 70% wages-to-revenue line," Maguire said. "That will allow them to reinvest very well.

"It will give them that financial flexibility that they didn't have 12 months ago when they were forced to do nothing for a couple of windows. You don't want that repeating, especially when the club are ambitious and aspirational."

So begins life after Isak.