Liverpool striker Alexander Isak 'met with boos' to become the norm as Newcastle details don't matter

The Premier League’s most expensive player teased ‘something for another day’ after his return to action on Monday.

Liverpool striker Alexander Isak was a second-half substitute for Anthony Elanga in Sweden’s comprehensive defeat at the hands of Kosovo in a World Cup qualifier in Pristina.

Taking to the field for the first time since refusing to play for Newcastle United in order to force his transfer to the Premier League champions, Isak got his first taste of 2025-26 public opinion.

Sweden were beaten 2-0 in a game described by the Swedish press as a ‘fiasco’ and a ‘painful drag’, leaving them winless in their first two fixtures in Group B after Friday’s draw in Slovenia.

Isak wasn’t involved in Sweden’s first qualifier after completing his switch to Anfield for a reported British transfer record fee of £125m and was welcomed in a way to which he will soon become accustomed.

“The forward played his first match since May and was met with boos,” reports Fotbollskanalen.

Isak was shown a yellow card for his part in a minor fracas with Kosovo players but had no other noteworthy impact on a game that has Sweden’s sports media seething.

Speaking to them after the match, Isak discussed his controversial deadline day move from Newcastle to Liverpool for the first time and indicated that more details could emerge.

“Not everyone has the full picture, but that’s something for another day,” said Isak.

“I can’t control everything that’s said or written. But I’m happy that I became a Liverpool player.

“It’s great that everything was settled before the camp and that I could focus on playing football again.”

That Isak felt unable to focus on football until September was self-inflicted and he wasn’t alone.

For Newcastle, it was a case of strike action giveth and strike action taketh away when Brentford’s Yoane Wissa dug his heels in to become part of the Magpies’ post-Isak solution, a tactic that might feel more common than ever but is nothing new.

Isak can expect a similar reception around the Premier League this season. Football fans are used to players wanting to move from one club to another but the Sweden striker’s approach is seen to have crossed a line.

Premier League players are extremely well paid and while that doesn’t disallow them from feeling unhappy, disgruntled or just itchy for a different challenge, it does come with the expectation that they behave in a professional manner.

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Isak is right to point out that not everyone has the full picture, but sympathy wears thin when supporters are presented with irrefutable evidence that a player isn’t doing his job. The details barely matter.

Wissa might get away with that in terms of the wider response. Isak won’t. Thriving at a club near the top of the Premier League, with a Champions League campaign on the way and the glow of a historic cup win still warm, he was by any publicly available measure in a good place.

The least supporters should be able to expect in that situation is for a player to show up and work to the best of his ability, regardless of transfer developments going on behind the scenes.

Whatever we do or don’t know about those developments, sitting out matches and training in an attempt to force a sale or drive down a fee is the sort of behaviour that will always go down badly.

The whole story might come out at some point, but it’s unlikely to change much. For Isak, a player who had it all but crossed a line because he wanted more, there are many more boos to come.

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