With Isak pushing for a move away from St James’ Park, he went to the extreme of going on strike at one stage. That prevented him from completing a normal pre-season, with training sessions and friendly outings passing him by.
Liverpool are now having to get the 25-year-old forward up to speed, with the decision taken not to risk him in a Premier League clash with Burnley that required Mohamed Salah to net a 95th-minute penalty and keep Slot’s side perfect at the start of the 2025-26 campaign.
Liverpool’s Dutch coach told reporters when asked again about when Isak will be let off the leash: “He did recovery [today]. He had a hard and tough session yesterday. It’s not that difficult to understand. If you start the season when the players have been off for three, four, five weeks, you give them a certain base and a lot of good sessions before they are able to play 45 minutes at the end of the week. We got him from Newcastle in a state where his pre-season is going to start now. He needs proper minutes of training before he has a certain base, let alone for him to play twice in three days.
“We try to prepare players at the beginning of the season to play once a week and then we try to do more and more before we go into the rhythm of two games a week so they are ready from that schedule. Now, Alex is far from ready for that schedule of three games a week, 90 minutes. Today, we could have used him for five minutes and 10 on Wednesday, but we don’t believe that is the way to build him up.”
Slot added, with Isak having taken in 18 minutes of World Cup qualifying action with Sweden during the international break: “In Sweden, they did the right thing of giving him good sessions without playing him a lot. But if you play the player, you cannot give him good sessions.
“We did the same and now he will be able – either Wednesday or Saturday – to play 45 as a minimum, maybe a bit more. But if he plays 45 on Wednesday, don’t expect to play 45 or more on Saturday because his body is not prepared for that, in our opinion.”
Liverpool parted with a historic fee in order to sign Isak after seeing him register 62 goals for Newcastle through 109 appearances. He has inherited the fabled No.9 shirt at Anfield and will be eager to do that jersey justice once cleared to make his bow.
