Mohamed Salah had been sitting down in a puffer jacket and hiding his face with a balaclava for most of the evening. He was not hiding for long.
Soon, he was sprinting up and down the pitch at Elland Road doing a warm-down which is customary for all unused substitutes, reaching speeds that he had not hit since last season. He looked like a man possessed with frustration and fury.
Just before that, he had trudged over to the Liverpool away supporters housed in the corner of this old stadium and offered them two outstretched arms and a wave. See you next week? Goodbye?
Afterwards, he marched out of an exit door towards the waiting bus to take Arne Slot’s disgruntled squad back along the M62 to Merseyside after another disappointing draw that, for the record, Salah played no part in. Can’t blame him this week.
As he walked by, he locked eyes with a couple of reporters he recognised from his last bombshell chat and promised to be back. Everyone present knew what was coming.
When Salah speaks, it usually goes global within seconds. ‘I hear Mo has been talking,’ texted one journalist friend all the way from Cairo, Egypt.
The rest, as they say, is history. History, likewise, is Salah’s Liverpool career, seemingly. Or alternatively, Arne Slot’s grasp on the dressing room.
Virgil van Dijk has been out to bat for his Dutch compatriot in recent weeks, Dominik Szoboszlai likewise. But when you lose Salah, well, it is like a prime minister losing his closest big-influence ally in the media.
A run of two wins in 10 league games have been bad enough but when the best player to pull on your club’s shirt this side of Steven Gerrard comes out with the explosive words he did at around 8.10pm on Saturday night, you have a mountain to climb.
Whatever you think of Salah, whether he was right or wrong to speak so publicly in such a way, this was a seven-minute conversation that would send shockwaves throughout the footballing world.
This is a full-blown civil war between Slot and Salah now.
Will he be on Liverpool’s flight from John Lennon Airport to Milan Malpensa on Monday afternoon? Will he be on the training pitch at the AXA Training Centre at 11.45am that morning? Will he be in the XI at the San Siro when they play Inter Milan on Tuesday?
A ‘yes’ to any of those, Slot may be thinking, would undermine his authority as head coach.
What of the hierarchy, sporting director Richard Hughes and Fenway Sports Group chief Michael Edwards, who do they side with? Salah, turning 34 this summer with one year left on his deal, or the under-fire boss who brought them just a second Premier League title last term?
These are all questions for another day. Right now, everyone at the club is reeling from Salah running his mouth. Imagine the shocked faces of team-mates walking past on to the bus, or the awkward reactions when they are on the motorway reading his words an hour later.
Salah has history for this, it is worth saying. Daily Mail Sport was there at Southampton just over a year ago when, on a rainy and cold night, the Egyptian sought out reporters to launch into a rant about how he was ‘more out than in’ regarding his then-expiring contract.
What is he now then? More out than in all over again? The whole thing is now a circus. Slot’s head must also be at the point of exploding, too.
Salah says he will be inviting his parents over to the next home game against Brighton on Saturday because he thinks it could be his last game for the club before he jets off to the Africa Cup of Nations.
Slot is now, therefore, left in an extremely awkward position: play Salah in that game and give him his wish, all the time undermining his authority and letting the player win this civil war. Or risk turning fans against him by dropping him from the squad altogether.
How long was this bombshell chat bubbling away? At the London Stadium last week, when he was dropped, Daily Mail Sport asked him if he had two minutes for a chat. He smiled, looked up and seemed to think about it.
In hindsight, we should have known he was ready to talk but we let him stroll away, instead grabbing a word with Van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister.
Salah is not a regular talker, it must be said. Last season, he was obliged to do a few chats with Sky Sports as he was so often their man of the match. But he only stopped to talk to newspaper reporters once, down at Southampton with that now-famous five-minute rant about the club.
That time, he got his wish. He got the club to jolt into action and offer him a new mega-money deal. A year on, will he get his wish again?
And let’s not understate what that wish is. Though he did not explicitly say it, it is clear what he wants: Slot out.
Liverpool have gone from Premier League champions to a club in civil war. Star player versus head coach. Pantomime villain Salah now more in than out once again. Slot with his biggest challenge in his career. May the best man win.
