Tuesday night, Isaac Hayden participated in a game for Newcastle United.
No, he really did.
But it wasn’t at St. James’ Park that Newcastle United defeated AFC Wimbledon despite their inability to generate enough opportunities or convert them into wins to tighten the score. The outcome was always certain after Fabian Schar scored the penalty, even if the visitors failed to muster a single chance on goal.
All the same, Isaac Hayden.
Isaac Hayden was actually playing for “Newcastle United” yesterday night, around 150 miles away from St. James’ Park—his first game since 2021.
The midfielder participated in a National League Cup away game at Halifax Town for the NUFC Under 21s.
Ben Parkinson and Johnny Emerson goals sealed a 2-1 victory for United, with Trevan Sanusi coming on for Isaac Hayden after the latter played for around an hour.
Only a few weeks after Eddie Howe took charge, in December 2021, Isaac Hayden made his first team debuts for United in the Premier League against Liverpool and Man City.
Since then, he has only made three starts for the main team while on loan at Queens Park Rangers, Standard Liege, and Norwich City.
Isaac Hayden hasn’t actually done anything wrong; he’s just been a victim of the Mike Ashley regime and the transition to a legitimate cub run by ambitious owners—if you can call someone a victim who is paid tens of thousands of pounds a week to do nothing?
Ashley refused to let the Newcastle United team make the necessary investments, and as Steve Bruce’s tenure deepened, we witnessed an increasing number of absurd contracts being given out—paying players far more than their skill level should have—instead of paying more for players who were Premier League caliber.
In this regard, Isaac Hayden is fortunately essentially the last man standing; those who didn’t meet the now-required standard either moved on or, in many/most cases, saw out their contracts through to the absolute end.
Isaac Hayden still has nearly 21 months remaining on his absurd new six-year contract that he was handed back in 2020 (the current contract position for all Newcastle United players is listed below; perhaps, the news of Anthony Gordon’s longer agreement will be released very soon!).
Isaac Hayden will never receive a salary from a team that even comes close to what he still makes at Newcastle United (despite not playing).
He continues to train with the Newcastle United Under 21s at the club for this reason.
Isaac Hayden could have played for the first team last night in the Carabao Cup even though he was not included in the Premier League senior squad for the first half of this season. Of course, the FA Cup is also affected by this.
even though it won’t occur.
Although it is now outside of transfer windows, from what I understand, Isaac Hayden becomes a free agent right away and can join with any club if he and the team decide to end his contract at this time.
Ultimately, though, a lot of this boils down to how driven a person is to play football. To play football somewhere else, how much of the money they are entitled to for not playing will they be ready to give up?
Over the years, many extremely awful instances have been witnessed by all of us, especially at Newcastle United. Just take a look at that fat rat Ryan Fraser, who destroyed Bournemouth, and then Ashley and Bruce allowed him to destroy Newcastle United.
