Isak’s arrival was announced by Newcastle on Friday afternoon after the forward joined for a club-record fee of £60m this week.
Director of football Dan Ashworth reopened lines of communications with Real Sociedad on Monday after Newcastle deemed Isak to be too expensive earlier in the window.
The forward’s agent also informed the Spanish club that he would be keen to move to Newcastle and a deal was thrashed out over the next 48 hours with Ashworth flying to Spain to work out the details.
But it needed a change in Newcastle’s transfer strategy to clinch the deal to sign the 22-year-old from the San Sebastian club.
Newcastle’s transfer ploy until now has been to structure deals in a way that will see them pay a low fee upfront.
However, that changed for the Isak negotiations and Newcastle agreed to pay the lion’s share of the fee upfront to Real Sociedad.
The figure they have initially forked out to sign Isak dwarfs the £40m they paid for Joelinton in 2019.
The rest of the fee will be paid through instalments, including various add-ons based on the performance of the team and the player.
