Newcastle wantaway Alexander Isak is pulling out all the textbook moves to force a switch to Liverpool; having told the Magpies he wants to leave, the striker has been left out of a friendly, pulled out of the pre-season tour and, of course, gone 'AWOL'. It's a throwback to some of the great transfer sagas of years gone by, and it seems to have some way to run yet.
A matter of days after Liverpool made their interest clear, Isak was sent home ahead of Newcastle's friendly defeat to Celtic having been unsettled by the intense speculation surrounding him. Then, after Al-Hilal joined the race for his signature, the striker was left out of the Magpies' pre-season tour to Asia due to a supposed thigh injury.
Reports that he had gone 'AWOL' soon followed amid the Tynesiders' refusal to sell, and it emerged that he had been training at former club Real Sociedad in Spain, rather than at Newcastle's facilities, in a bid to get back to full fitness. Isak wants to join the Reds, and it's even been claimed that he could even take the 'nuclear' option of unilaterally terminating his contract to make the move happen.
This one's not over yet, but how does the saga centring around Isak compare to some of the most infamous in football history? GOAL runs through the top 10: