'There has to be...' - Newcastle United boss issues demand to squad as Alexander Isak makes history
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Eddie Howe hailed Alexander Isak’s quality after seeing the Sweden international fire Newcastle into the Premier League’s top four.
Isak became the first Magpies player to score in eight successive Premier League games as he took his tally for the season to 17 – 16 of them in his last 16 games – with a double in Wednesday night’s 3-0 win over Wolves.
Head coach Howe said: “It’s an incredible achievement. This is the hardest league in the world to score in against very good defences, especially with the fixture list that we’ve had, so to have that level of quality that he’s shown – and today’s goals were very different in how they’ve come about.
“The second goal will be underestimated, the finish, because it looks easy. It certainly wasn’t, but that’s his quality and his class because he always has that split-second extra to place his finish just down to the attributes and the technical ability he has.
“If you look at a lot of his goals, a lot of his goals have come from crosses recently where he’s in the right place at the right time. Goalscoring is an art form, it’s about being in the right positions, but he also then has the technical quality to finish in a calm way and not a lot of players can do that.”
If there was an element of good fortune about Isak’s 34th-minute opener, which was deflected past wrong-footed keeper Jose Sa by defender Rayan Ait-Nouri, his clinical finish from Bruno Guimaraes’ inch-perfect through-ball which made it 2-0 was of the highest quality.
Isak then turned provider to allow Anthony Gordon to cement the points with his effort surviving a lengthy VAR check, and a disappointing night for the visitors was compounded when defender Santiago Bueno saw a consolation strike ruled out for handball after a review.
A club record-equalling ninth win on the trot sent Newcastle into the top four, but left Howe demanding even more.
He said: “There has to be more to come and that’s the challenge that we have to pose to the players because today wasn’t perfect, the last 20 minutes wasn’t great, I didn’t think, and we need to keep growing, we need to keep evolving because the challenges only get harder and stronger.
“That will be my message to the players. We’ll endeavour to do the work to try to find the extra gears that we need to.”