Recently, Newcastle United fans hit the roof when Sky Sports’ bizarre agenda of pushing Alexander Isak on Arsenal reached a whole new low.
Newcastle fans have been constantly frustrated at the fact that nobody in the mainstream media can mention how good Alexander Isak is without somehow bringing it around to how good he’d be playing for Arsenal.
It has gone beyond transfer rumours, as there’s never actually been any move from Arsenal, so it’s all been media-driven.
On Soccer Saturday, Mark McAdam was covering the recent Newcastle win over Southampton, and when reporting on a goal scored by Isak, McAdam immediately mentioned Arsenal, before even saying Southampton’s name in a report of a game between Newcastle and Southampton.
All hell broke loose after the Southampton game
That caused The Telegraph’s Luke Edwards to launch to Newcastle’s defence on X, calling out Mark McAdam for what he did.
In turn, Sky Sports’ Keith Downie leapt to the defence of his colleague saying that there’s no agenda and that he’d spoken to McAdam and he understands what he did, but ultimately played down any talk of the imbalanced reporting around Isak.
Well, after Paul Merson spouted off about Isak joining Arsenal less than 12 hours after the Magpies dumped them out of the Carabao Cup, Keith Downie has now walked back his previous comments.
Keith Downie claims he’s spoken to Sky bosses about the way it is being handled
In a lengthy reply to Newcastle fan @Im_RobM, Downie has admitted that he now sees what we’ve all been saying while claiming to have spoken to Sky bosses at length about it.
“I now hear what you are saying, and I see it, too. I apologise if I have previously failed to read the room. The timing of this chat does seem strange given the transfer window closed two days previously, and Newcastle are the team who can win the trophy – not Arsenal.
“What I will say is I listened to the full segment from PM talking about NUFC and he was very complimentary, but i do in general question repeated Isak/Arsenal links when there has been no talks/bid, and I disagree that Arsenal is his only possible destination in the world – I’m unsure how that can be derived at this stage.
“He also says he’s very happy at Newcastle and enjoying his football.
“For what it’s worth, IMO Isak has become such a rare commodity that very few teams can afford him, and I’d be very surprised if that’s Arsenal given their own PSR challenges. But hey, I’m loathed to even talk about it as that seems part of the problem. But yes, I do see what many of you are saying and I understand your frustrations.
“I would like to add that over the past 48 hours, I have worked around the clock to produce hours of positive Newcastle coverage around the semi-final win over Arsenal, and will continue to do so in the build up to the Cup final.”
