Published: 02:00, 18 October 2025 | Updated: 02:00, 18 October 2025

Alexander Isak last played at his best in February. Even his goal in March during Newcastle’s Carabao Cup final win over Liverpool felt like a cameo from a star already starting to write himself out of the script. 

For the most expensive player in British history, eight months is a long time to look either half-fit or, worse still, half-interested, as he did in those final, fractious months on Tyneside.

Since then, Isak has fallen into the pit he now inhabits. It may be cushioned by banknotes, but he looks all the poorer for having forced his dream move to Liverpool. Right now, he seems trapped in a nightmare.

During those closing days at Newcastle, and this extends into last season, coaches felt distance where once there was intimacy and eagerness.

‘We can’t get near him,’ said one insider, and this was before they literally couldn’t, once he went on strike.

Isak had turned his back on the tutelage that helped make him so great. And he was great. Call it disrespectful,...