Alexander Isak, Marcus Rashford to Barcelona

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including Alexander Isak’s decision to leave Newcastle amid Liverpool interest, Marcus Rashford’s move to Barcelona, Arsenal’s pursuit of Viktor Gyokeres, and more.

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Alexander Isak pursuit is showing Liverpool’s ruthlessness

I can only see Alexander Isak joining Liverpool if he does leave Newcastle, which is now expected. I think this has been something that’s been ongoing probably for 12 months or more. I think the expectation from Newcastle was that it was going to be next season that other clubs were going to bid. A lot of fans will want him to be sold abroad, but it doesn’t work like that. If the player say that they’re going to down tools unless you let me go to this specific club, it’s very, very difficult for the club.

And of course, clubs do it themselves. So there isn’t a club that doesn’t let it be known a year out, sometimes two years out, that they want a specific player and they’re keeping an eye on them and they say all the nice things for the agent. And if there’s a time and a place in the future that it might happen, we’d be more than willing.

I think that what it does show, the greater story here is that the top five or six teams in the Premier League have realised now that because the sheer amount of goals that are being created and scored in the Premier League. There are so many goals being scored now that I think that you are, that every team, particularly the top four or five teams, are massively front-loaded in their forward positions.

With Liverpool, I know that there probably will be some room for Diaz and or Nunez to go. But still, at the moment, if they were to get Isak across the line, you’ve got Diaz, Gakpo, Nunez, Salah, Wirtz, Ekitike, and potentially Isak. That’s six top-quality front players.

So for me, it just says that Liverpool now are realising that if they’re going to stay top of the Premier League, if they’re going to continue to win Champions Leagues, but more importantly, win domestic leagues in the manner that Manchester City have done, they have to accept that Man City, Man United, Chelsea and Arsenal are going to continue to spend as more and more money pours into the Premier League. And I think that FSG have realised that they’ve got to do the same.

Where do Newcastle go for here if Isak does leave?

I think that the story for Newcastle is exactly the same as the story when Kevin Keegan had Andy Cole and the likes of Ginola and Asprilla and Alan Shearer. Unfortunately Newcastle fans won’t like this, but it has a grain of truth: until the doors are blown off financial fair play, Newcastle isn’t a destination for the very best players in the world. And it’s why I’m absolutely convinced that somewhere down the line there will be an English club, like Newcastle, that bases its training ground in London.

Newcastle are going to have to solve a problem whereby players do not want to live in the North East of England. If you’re a top quality professional footballer, it’s a goldfish bowl up there. Once you make it to a certain level there, everybody knows you. Everybody knows where your movements are. And it’s not close enough to be able to go out and commute and be in London, like some players do.

I have no doubt that in 20 years’ time, Newcastle will have won Premier Leagues, Champions Leagues. But in this first phase, having their training complex in London will make it easier for players to want to join.

Man United have lost out in Marcus Rashford deal

I think this Rashford deal is poor for Man United. For a player at the peak of his career that they’ve nurtured to possibly only get £25m for him if Barcelona buy him next summer, having paid an absolute arm and a leg in wages over the years, isn’t recompense at all.

For the player, it’s quite unbelievable. He had a poor last season at Man United, goes to Aston Villa. Cameo appearances that were not particularly great, but by the way that Gary Lineker talks, you’d thought it was Lionel Messi playing for Villa last season.

For Barcelona, what do they get? They get a player on the cheap whose wages will be nowhere near the £300k mark if they were to buy him permanently next summer. But they get the best of the deal, quite simply, because they’re going to get a player that’s motivated to play for them. All that was coming out through the season last season was, Marcus Rashford won’t sign for Aston Villa permanently because he’s waiting for Barcelona.

I think the greatest story here is how players can effectively be so poor for a couple of seasons, basically, including the loan at Villa, and still dictate where they want to go to a club that’s playing in the Champions League and arguably among the four or five biggest clubs on the planet. And I find that remarkable.

I think that from a Barcelona perspective, it’s only because they’re still coming out of that negative financial situation that they were in, so that they were doing lots of wheeling and dealing in the last three or four years. But Marcus Rashford, make no bones about it, he’s a very, very, very lucky boy, because if football had any logic, he would probably be getting a move to Blackburn, Norwich or another aspirational championship club – certainly not one of the top four or five clubs in the world.

Why weren’t the big Premier League clubs in for Evan Ferguson?

I think it’s quite remarkable that Evan Ferguson, who is still only 20 years of age, did not attract more attention, especially from Premier League clubs. I mean, he can still technically be seen as a development player. I think it just goes to show how shallow some of these big clubs are, as they’d rather buy a proven scorer for £70-80m rather than make their own talent.

With Ferguson, he’s got probably a career of 15 years ahead of him, he’s an international already, he’s scored goals in the top league in the Premier League already. All he needs is a Liverpool, Man United, Man City, Chelsea or Arsenal to come in and say we’ll take you. They can pay Brighton £30-40m, develop him, allow him to play for the U21s, U23s, keep him in and around the matchday squad, and teach him the way that we want him to play as a centre forward.

And I just find it remarkable that these clubs scoff at the thought of developing a player that has undoubted talent and ability, that possibly could play up front for them for the next five, six, seven, eight years.

The thing that I find remarkable is that he’s been allowed to go out to Italy. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we’re not having a conversation in 12 months’ time that he’s had an absolute cracker of a season and the top five or six clubs are looking at buying him for £55-60m. And that would be a bargain because he’d only be 21.

The big story here is that Premier League clubs are just cherry picking players off the tree instead of getting their head down and developing players like that on the coaching ground. You think of Pep Guardiola, Arne Slot, Mikel Arteta, Thomas Frank, Unai Emery, Eddie Howe – between them, if they haven’t got the ability to be able to coach top quality movement and understanding and developing a game of Evan Ferguson, then none of them are the managers that they claim to be.

Agents should not be as prominent as they are in football

Ordinarily it would be that Arsenal wants the player, in this case Viktor Gyokeres, they make an offer to the club, the club say yes, you can speak to the player, they offer terms to the player, the player says yes, and the fee is done. The fact that the agent, by demanding so much money, can cause so many complications is just baffling to me.

Why on earth was the only thing potentially that was holding up the deal was the size of the agent’s fee? If the agent is having to say publicly that he dropped his fee so that the deal can get done, then it gives you an idea of how many deals must not get done because of the agent’s demands. For me it’s really simple: they should be on the clock like lawyers, they get paid a salary, and you see their work audited.

Yes, there is an argument that players get paid too much, but they’re the stars of the show. They’re the ones that go out and perform week in and week out in front of packed out crowds and sponsors, advertisers want to get involved in the product that is the Premier League – agents don’t. And I’m telling you now that a really good lawyer could get any player out there the identical deal that they have without having to pay them up to £10 million. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and a shameful indictment on how much agents are getting into this game.

Thomas Tuchel has to crystallise his England attacking options

I would say in areas that there are some players that are now done in terms of England. I know that Rashford was brought back by Tuchel, but I think Jack Grealish is done. I think that I can’t see him wearing an England shirt again. Also, I personally wouldn’t pick Rashford for England again.

If I was Thomas Tuchel, I would be honing down on the players that I want for my side. It’s a given that Harry Kane is going to be the number nine, and Ollie Watkins is probably going to be his backup. If you’re looking at Bukayo Saka on the rise, then you’re looking at one backup right winger and you’re looking at then on the left-hand side.

I would play Cole Palmer on the left; he’s a winger for all intents and purposes. Forget the fact that he plays as a 10 and he drops deep, etc. He’s extraordinarily left-footed player and he can go past people with ease. He would not be the first player in world football history to play one position for his club and another position for his nation. I think he should be just told quite simply: play on the left, hug the touchline, go past the full-back, put the cross in the box. There’s nothing stopping you from drifting in and playing a one-two and scoring your goals. So for me, it would be Saka on the right, Palmer on the left.

And the other two that I would be looking at are Eberechi Eze and Anthony Gordon. Again, I think they can both play on both sides. Arguably, Eze on the left or on the right could work, and I think likewise with Gordon – he plays on the left for Newcastle, but I think he could play on the right as well.

It’s a really important season coming up for Phil Foden, because if he’s going to be crucial to England moving forward, then where is he going to play? Is he going to continue to be the guy that we stick on the left of a three, or the right of a three, or as a number 10, and only get a few minutes in each and he never gets to nail the position down?

But for me, I think that what it does is that this season will crystallize Saka, Gordon, Eze, Palmer as the options by the side of Harry Kane. We can finally dispense with any talk of Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford in particular.