His first answer lasts almost 13 minutes, a jumbled torrent of words that reflect just how much Isaac Hayden needs to talk, to explain. The question was not exactly Jeremy Paxman, not quite David Frost or Jonathan Dimbleby, but the gentlest of dollies about whether the Newcastle United midfield player is enjoying his football. Enjoyment, it turns out, is not a straightforward concept. In Hayden’s existence, nothing is.

Hayden is playing for “a huge club with fantastic fans”, but satisfaction is tempered. This is “not a place you would willingly give up”, he says, but it is what he tried to do, pushing to leave Newcastle last summer and again in January, driven to sacrifice something for his family, which is not the way that