A story that began with the offer of a pay rise ran through a successful season on the pitch and ended with a British record transfer to Liverpool
Not too many players are capable of upstaging Mohamed Salah but, last month, Alexander Isak revelled in revealing that rare ability.
Salah had assumed centre stage at Manchester’s Opera House and, as the latest recipient of the Professional Footballers’ Association player of the year award, was preparing to deliver an eagerly awaited acceptance speech when he lost a previously rapt audience.
Numerous discreet vibrations from phones switched to silent had transmitted the news of Isak posting a particularly provocative Instagram message. In accusing Newcastle of breaking promises and leaving a relationship severed, it reduced even Liverpool’s Egypt forward to a mere warm-up act before the night’s main event.
Isak has always possessed the knack of timing his runs to perfection and now the Sweden striker had picked precisely the right, high-profile moment to pave the final stretch of an albeit still arduous path towards joining Salah at Anfield. His Instagram message certainly blindsided St James’ Park executives while virtually extinguishing increasingly faint hopes that a player then refusing to either train with or play for Newcastle could somehow be “reintegrated” into Eddie Howe’s squad.
