All the symptoms suggest Arsenal are prepared for an enormous summer of investment and can a minimum of test the waters where Isak is worried.
The Gunners kept their powder dry in January when it appeared they were in dire need of attacking reinforcements even before Kai Havertz’s season-ending injury.
It is going to, nonetheless, take a fee well in excess of the £100 million Arsenal spent on Declan Rice two years ago to land a player they really should have bought way back to January 2022, following the choice to exile Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Whether it could represent a shrewd decision to spend the farm on a player who would solve the striker conundrum on the Emirates is one other query.
Indeed, Jamie Carragher recently suggested Arsenal’s essential issue at present is an absence of creativity and a more sensible plan of action could be to sign one other winger plus a creative midfielder which might still, in theory, allow Mikel Arteta to sign a centre forward at a more accommodating price.
It have to be said, as well, that Isak, for his part, has shown absolutely no desire to go away a club who will undoubtedly make him one of the best paid player of their history should they qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s Wembley final, the Sweden international said: ‘I’m probably not occupied with the summer yet.
‘That shall be a talking point when the season is finished. No talks have been held yet. I even have said again and again that I don’t really think an excessive amount of about my future.
‘I even have said again and again I’m joyful here and we’re competing for titles, which is what you would like as a football player. We’ve been to at least one final and now we’re in one other one.
‘The likelihood is there. We must always have a look at it one season at a time, and this season we are able to win a trophy.
‘I even have said again and again I’m focused on doing a job. All of our focus is on Sunday and bringing a trophy back.’
Nothing overly sensationalist in those words, but you could possibly infer that this can be a player conscious about his own value whose desire might well be to stay at Newcastle should they match his ambition and there’s little, on recent evidence, to suggest they’ll’t.
James Goldman | Metro Sports Editor
