Alexander Isak walked slowly onto the pitch after Newcastle’s 3-1 win at Southampton.
His hands were deep in his burgundy jacket, with a large hood draped low over his eyes. He moved with a swagger. As he crossed the touchline, he reached up and removed the hood with both hands.
It was reminiscent of a boxer’s walk towards the ring, filled with confidence and an awareness of their own aura. But unlike a boxer, none of this was an affected bravado. He had already delivered his knockout in a dominant two-goal performance.
Southampton are a poor side destined for relegation — but they are not the first team to have been contorted like this.
Isak is now the first Newcastle player to score in five successive Premier League away games, part of a tally of 11 goals in his last eight appearances.
Isak added to his goal tally against Southampton (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
After Premier League goals 47 and 48, he is now the joint-highest scoring Swede in the competition’s history (alongside Freddie Ljungberg) and moved above Callum Wilson to trail only Alan Shearer among Newcastle’s all-time Premier League scorers.
Those statistics are all accolades — but there is one particularly instructive number, even if it does not quite sound as catchy.
Isak is averaging an expected goals (xG) per shot of 0.21, the second-highest in the Premier League among players who have scored at least three times this season. Trailing only Brentford’s Yoane Wissa (0.23), it demonstrates Isak manages to consistently manufacture extremely high-quality chances.
Some of this is down to his service — Jacob Murphy has the joint fourth-most assists in the league (eight), Bruno Guimaraes is joint sixth (six) — but more than anything, that ability to find goalscoring opportunities relies on Isak himself, created by a quality of movement that is virtually unmatched among strikers in the Premier League.
Often, forwards have two or three techniques to find space. In just 70 minutes against Southampton, Isak managed to display at least seven — it is this variety that is key to his game.
1. Pulling wide
This one is basic — but something Isak is known for.
At times he has played on the left wing, with Callum Wilson operating centrally, but when he operates as a No 9, dropping wide is about something very different — it’s all about manipulating the defence for others to flood into space.
His heatmap from his player dashboard against Southampton shows how he operates across the full width of the pitch.
Isak’s intentions are clear from the opening minutes on Saturday.
Here, he is glued to the right touchline — and though the ball does not go to him in this phase of play, it opens up a huge gap between the centre-backs. Guimaraes plays Joelinton into the space — fractionally too heavy for the latter to get a shot away.
Less than a minute later, he pops up on the other side of the field — look how his positioning pulls Southampton’s right-sided centre-back, James Bree, wide, forced to cover a large gap between him and Joelinton.
Here is a final example from the first half. Jan Bednarek may win the ball against Isak out wide, but the Sweden forward is happy to engage in these duels. Bednarek has left his fellow centre-backs Bree and Taylor Harwood-Bellis vulnerable — Guimaraes and Anthony Gordon are lurking.
By moving so much laterally, it forced all five of Southampton’s defenders to be in constant conversation about who was picking him up — if a striker stays central, that responsibility is shared by just two players. It massively raises the chance of a miscommunication.
2. Dropping deep
This is related to width — Bednarek was pulled around the pitch all game. Isak continually dropped into midfield, with his full-backs and wingers streaming infield to vacate the gap — look at Murphy, on the right wing, pointing to the gap Bednarek has just vacated. Five players are in front of Isak when he receives it.
Coming from deeper also allows Isak to react and choose where he arrives for any second phase.
Below is another excellent example and it foreshadows Sandro Tonali’s goal. Bednarek follows Isak too far up the field…
… and that opens up the space for Fabian Schar to slide a beautiful vertical ball into Gordon. The winger fractionally mistimes his run, and is caught offside.
No such mistake is made in the second half by Tonali. Look at Bednarek’s aggression in pushing up on Isak. When the striker flicks it on to Gordon, there are acres of space for Tonali, making a third-man run, to gallop forward and score clinically.
Isak’s ability in deeper areas was honed at AIK’s academy, where they occasionally played him in midfield to prevent him from relying on his physical ability.
“He was growing in awareness that he’d become really fast,” explains Peter Wennberg, the academy’s technical director. “He’d run deep and complain if he didn’t get it behind the back line.
“We wanted him to gain 360-degree awareness, so we decided to put him in more traffic. It meant he became more involved in the game, put pressure on his first touch, made him contend with more traffic. We saw how he could affect the game in the build-up.”
3. Off the shoulder
Of course, having that pace means that Isak is still quick enough to challenge defenders in behind.
His movement into deeper areas increases this potency — the centre-backs are forced higher to deny him those pockets of space, in turn offering him space in behind. He is asking the defence to pick their poison.
The midfield also has a role in this — here, Guimaraes pulls away from goal, dragging Joe Aribo with him. That opens up space between the lines, making space for Isak to receive ground balls down the channels.
Here’s another example from early in the game — Isak accelerates the moment that Bednarek is forced to rotate his hips, and is only narrowly beaten to the ball.
For Isak’s second goal, Murphy beats the Southampton midfield brilliantly, bypassing the need for Newcastle’s distraction tactics…
… and by remaining side-on, Isak manages the gap between himself and Bednarek, showing Murphy where he wants the pass.
The moment the ball is passed, he flips his hips to sprint forward and an excellent first touch back across Bednarek closes off the cover defenders — 2-1 to Newcastle.
4. Take-ons
Watching the succession of chances created by Isak, it is fair to ask why Southampton’s defenders did not learn and continued to aggressively press him despite the cost.
But it is also understandable why they did not — if they sat back, Isak has the ability and willingness to drive forward and beat players. In many ways, this is the best way to create space — there is always a surplus behind a defender, and it does not use up any team-mates — but it comes with the risk of losing the ball.
Isak’s take-on map this season (below) shows he is unafraid.
“His self-belief, his general confidence when he enters the pitch seems really high at the moment, and that’s not a given,” said Eddie Howe post-match. “You have to earn that.”
Against Southampton, there was nothing as spectacular as his assist against Everton two seasons ago when he dribbled past five opposition defenders, but there were still several examples. Here, 15 minutes in, he crosses over Harwood-Bellis…
… which leaves Aribo scrambling, with Gordon unmarked at the back post.
His first touch for his second goal, nudging the ball away from Bednarek with one cushioned movement, is another case in point.
“He’s so smooth,” explains Andreas Alm, his first senior coach at AIK. “Think about how he doesn’t touch the ball but lets it run. That puts a whole back four on their heels, it opens up so many angles.”
5. The pick and roll
Isak is one of a small number of basketball fans at Newcastle, and this is a good example of his ability to manufacture space around the edge of the box.
Here, he punches the ball into Guimaraes’ feet, past Aribo. Look at how the head of every Southampton player swivels onto the Brazilian. Isak moves the other way — but rather than follow his pass through Aribo’s eyeline, he slips tightly around his opponent’s back.
It means nobody picks him up when Guimaraes flicks the ball back to him — and Isak has a decent shooting opportunity.
This is a product of constant scanning — but former team-mates sometimes felt like it was something else.
“His intelligence shone through,” says Henok Goitom, who served as a mentor for Isak at AIK, describing his first impression at first-team training. “He was… not sneaky, that sounds like a negative, but always looking for an opportunity or advantage, like, ‘This defender is this, maybe I can do that’.”
6. Chaos theory
“One thing he has developed a lot is finishing,” explains Oscar Krusnell, a former club and international team-mate. “I remember him being better outside the box, with his dribbling, with his link-up play — but I didn’t really see the instinct, the movement in the box and finishing with one touch. But he’s so good at it now.”
Krusnell is right — as The Athletic’s Liam Tharme explained a few weeks ago, Isak is now the king of the six-yard box.
His ability to find space in tight and congested spaces was on full display for the penalty that drew Newcastle level. After Paul Onuachu falls over in the process of clearing, Southampton’s spacing is momentarily disrupted.
Amid the lack of organisation, Isak has the patience to sit where he is — recognising the pocket of space. Moving would mean being picked up — by staying still, he forces a defender to proactively seek him out. None do.
The only movement he takes is a single step towards Guimaraes, pulling himself back onside. After one touch to get it out of his feet, he goes down under the challenge of Aribo, reacting late to the man he should have covered.
7. Nonchalance
During the Qatar World Cup, a clip of Lionel Messi walking went viral. It showed him feigning disinterest — or maybe it was genuine — before springing into life the moment an opportunity appeared. By lulling defenders into a false sense of security — even through details as small as being caught on their heels — attackers can reap major advantages.
Here’s an example from open play. Isak is flat-footed — and is mirrored by Bree, who should be up on his toes, ready to close down the space.
When the ball spills to Isak around the corner, Bree is out of position — while Isak’s reach and superior athleticism allow him to corral the ball, and easily beat the scrambling defender one-vs-one.
The following sequence is similar, leading to a penalty appeal for Lewis Hall. Look at Isak stretching his hamstrings during Southampton’s build-up. The message is clear — ‘I am not a threat.’
Even 10 seconds later, when Gordon’s pressure wins the ball, Isak is stood still — but there is a reason for that nonchalance, wanting to remain his side of halfway to beat the offside, while also recognising he is in a pocket of space behind Lesley Ugochukwu.
His speed allows him to reach the ball first, while his nonchalance ensures he was not picked up already — driving into the heart of the defence and potentially creating a game-sealing opportunity for Hall.
So where does this movement stem from?
Under Howe, a head coach known for his level of instruction in the structure and teaching of his attacking football, players are never left to their own devices in a ‘free role’. Isak receives pointers from analysts and coaching staff throughout the week.
Clearly, it is useful for team-mates to know some of what he is planning but such is the range of Isak’s attacking movement that there is a flaw in overburdening him with instructions. The benefit of performing on instinct alone is speed — putting conscious decisions into a player’s brain slows them down.
“With Alex, we try to find a balance between information and freedom,” Howe told The Athletic post-game. “He’s so creative naturally that putting too many restrictions on where he moves would be a negative.
“We give him a lot of structure out of possession, that’ll be very clear. We certainly won’t be leaving that to chance — there is a directive that he has to follow, and he’s done it really well this year.
“With the ball, yes, we have a certain way that we play and what we ask him to do, but there is certainly an element of freedom within that as well.”
That element is Isak’s element. Newcastle’s push for the Champions League depends on it.
GO DEEPER
Alexander Isak – king of the six-yard box
(Top photo: Visionhaus/Getty Images)