Away the lad: Isak exit

Departure from Newcastle began with offer of pay rise and ended in a record transfer via success at Wembley

- Louise Taylor

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 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 the right moment to pave the final stretch of an albeit still arduous path towards joining Salah at Anfield.

His Instagram message blindsided St James' Park executives while extinguishing faint hopes that a player then refusing to either train with or play for Newcastle could somehow be "reintegrated" into Eddie Howe's squad.