Record signing Alexander Isak is relishing the duty of attending to grips with Newcastle United’s all-action model after serving to to re-ignite their cost for a top-four end.
The £60million striker opened the scoring in Sunday’s 2-1 win over Wolves at St James’ Park having changed Callum Wilson, who had missed coaching by means of sickness in the course of the week, within the beginning line-up.
His inclusion got here days after head coach Eddie Howe admitted he was not but able to play 90 minutes regularly after a prolonged lay-off with a thigh damage, however solely on the depth required by the Magpies’ front-foot strategy.
Isak, 23, stated: “I played almost 70 minutes, emptied myself and sometimes that’s enough. Then you’ve got fresh legs and fresh players to come in and make an impact like they did. It’s something we have in this team which is really important for us.
“I feel confident and I think I can get fitter, but I feel fit and I feel good when I’m out there and I’m not having any troubles. But I’ll just keep on working.
“The intensity is tough, but I enjoy it. I enjoy it way more like this, intense and everything goes quickly and this type of football where you have more actions for yourself as well. It’s hard work and it’s tough, but I really enjoy it.”
Isak headed the house facet right into a Twenty sixth-minute lead from Kieran Trippier’s free-kick minutes after keeper Nick Pope had maybe been lucky to flee a second purple card in three appearances after colliding with striker Raul Jimenez within the field as he tried to atone for a unfastened contact.
The Magpies, who had gained solely certainly one of their earlier eight league video games to slide from third place within the desk to sixth earlier than kick-off, may need killed the sport off earlier than half-time, however didn’t and had been made to pay when Hwang Hee-chan got here off the Wolves bench to degree.
However, fellow substitute Miguel Almiron matched his feat and his eleventh aim of the season clinched a victory which eased Howe’s males again above Liverpool into fifth with a recreation in hand and to inside 4 factors of fourth-place Tottenham, who’ve performed two extra.
Isak stated: “We’ve played well, but as everyone knows that ball hasn’t wanted to be in the back of the net, so we showed great character.”
Wolves defender Craig Dawson admitted his disappointment on the final result on Tyneside.
Dawson instructed the membership’s official web site: “It was a tough one to take but I think we let them have too much of the game in the first half, which gives them confidence, it gave the crowd confidence.
“We’ve been in that position before and we got the goal back, so we’re obviously disappointed to concede the second goal and not to have held on in the end, but we’ve got to learn from that.”