Isak extends hot streak to sink Wolves and lift Newcastle into top four
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Newcastle’s sixth straight Premier League win – and ninth in all competitions – lifted Eddie Howe’s renascent team to fourth place as Alexander Isak demonstrated precisely why his manager believes he is a good as any striker in the world right now.
![[Anthony Gordon completes the scoring for Newcastle.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5b0d968607833f79ecca08aa8481562add1c7242/0_57_2383_1429/master/2383.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Isak’s 16th and 17th goals of an extraordinary season pushed Wolves into the relegation zone, nudging them below fourth bottom Ipswich on goal difference. The visiting manager, Vitor Pereira, has managed nine clubs in seven countries since leaving Porto in 2013 but all that vast, eclectic, experience failed to help Wolves’ new(ish) Portuguese coach detect a mortal streak in Howe’s suddenly irrepressible, seemingly unstoppable team.
Pereira had told his Wolves players that Newcastle were “not Supermen” and, evidently taking heed, the visitors certainly began in undaunted mode. Although José Sá needed to make a decent diving save to divert Jacob Murphy’s low, early, curling shot, Gonçalo Guedes should have done better than shoot narrowly wide from around eight yards after Sven Botman deflected Hwang Hee-chan’s cross into his path.
By the 30 minute mark, Sá had, once again, saved smartly from Murphy following the right winger’s expert dodging of Rayan Aït-Nouri and Isak had grazed the outside of a post after connecting with Bruno Guimarães’s defence bisecting pass. As the minutes ticked by Pereira and his staff became increasingly infuriated by some of Darren England’s officiating and seemed in peril of implosion when Dan Burn escaped unpunished after felling Guedes. They subsequently argued a penalty should have been awarded when Guedes crumpled under Isak’s challenge and their mood hardly improved when, in the 34th minute, fortune frowned on the Wolves backline.
