Alexander Isak did not travel with the Newcastle team during the Tour through the Far East in the midst of intense speculation about his future.
The Magpies, who hope to bind the 25-year-old Liverpool target white to a new mega money contract, announced that the absence of the hotshot is due to a “small thigh injury”.
Eddie Howe said that the Swede would be “absolutely” on the plane after the 4-0 defeat in Celtic on Saturday -despite the fact that he sent Isak home from Glasgow because he was influenced by transfer speculation.
Now club sources say that the persistent thighing problem of the star should be carefully controlled and that is why they have decided to let Tyneside stay on Tyneside for treatment, because the rest of his teammates were poured out on Thursday.
There were fear that two long-distance flights for the trips to Singapore and South Korea could be harmful to Isak's attempts to be fit for the start of the Premier League season.
But the absence of Isak in the pre-season tour, which will see Newcastle against Arsenal, Tottenham and a K-League All Stars XI, will only feed about speculation about his future.
Newcastle broke back an approach to Liverpool last week about a potentially British record costs of £ 120 million and remains stated that they will not sell last season's 27-goal top scorer.
The Reds then hijacked the Newcastle movement for Hugo Ekitike, but Arne Slot still hopes to introduce Isak while Saudi side Al-Hilal is also enthusiastic.
But the Saudi owners of the Magpies support Howe by selling and conversations are still planned for what a bumper new expansion will be in his tone deal with sources close to the attacker indicating that he wants to stay around £ 300,000 a week.
Although Sunsport understands that the camp of Isak was open to see what was being offered in Liverpool, he was disappointed by Newcastle 12 months ago.
That was due to the promise of a wage increase of his current £ 130,000 a week made contract by the former co-owners Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi who would not happen.
One of the first decisions of the now former sports director Paul Mitchell was to postpone the negotiations, because he thought the AAS was already beautifully paid and thought the club was safe because Isak was under contract until 2028.
Despite Mitchell's departure and conversations still planned by Newcastle, there has still been no progress, although Sunsport knows that Newcastle is willing to break their £ 150,000 a week payment ceiling and to make him the best paid player in their history.
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