Newcastle is braced for a formal offer from Liverpool for Alexander Isak this week after Eddie Howe has revealed that there is no chance that their will-away striker will be here in the Far East here.
The 25-year-old is on Tyneside after he has eradicated himself from the club's tour for the season with a thigh injury. Later scans were considered clear, but he will stay at home.
Isak wants to become a member of Liverpool and, with the Premier League champions on the way to £ 65 million from the sale of Luis Diaz to Bayern Munich, an official approach is now expected.
That will leave the owners of Newcastle a decision, as Howe has admitted this weekend. They must choose between negotiation and extracting maximum value for the player, or refusing all offers and tell Isak that he is staying. Even within the camp here in Singapore, the opinion is divided on which approach is best for the club.
The message from above remains that they want to keep their best players, but ISAK makes it clear that he wants to go, forcing the owners to make a business decision, especially if Liverpool's offer is approaching £ 150 million.
After he will not confirm for the next seven days that Isak will come to the team in South Korea for the next seven days, Howe spoke to the issue of his players who are distracted by the situation.
“It's for the players as usual,” said Newcastle's boss. 'Of course we will miss a player of Alex's quality and the group will feel that.
“That is not to be denied. I can't sit here and claim that they won't do that. But they are a very professional group of players and they do it brilliant as far as I can see in terms of managing the situation. '
Newcastle keeps talking to Brentford's Yoane Wissa, while RB Leipzig's Benjamin Sesko, Ollie Watkins from Aston Villa and Nicolas Jackson from Chelsea are also on the shortlist.
Howe, speaking after Sunday's 3-2 defeat by Arsenal, added: 'We were not misled.
'We know we have to bring in players. We have known that for a long time. We did a lot of work (at the end of last season) we knew what we wanted. But it was a challenging transfer window. Let's see what we can do. '