Arne Slot admits he may need to compromise with his Liverpool team selection in an attempt to finally get Alexander Isak firing, but the Reds boss remains confident the striker will eventually reproduce the devastating form he showed at Newcastle United.
Isak has endured a challenging start to life at Anfield following his British-record £125million move on transfer deadline day in September, managing just one goal in eight appearances.
The 26-year-old is still playing catch-up with his fitness after missing a full pre-season, having been excluded from Newcastle’s first-team squad during the summer as he pushed for a switch to Liverpool.
With Isak having not featured in the Premier League for more than a month, he is now pushing for a starting role in Saturday’s clash with Nottingham Forest.
That puts pressure on fellow summer signing Hugo Ekitike, who has enjoyed an encouraging start to his Liverpool career.
Slot admits he may be forced to select Isak more regularly in the coming weeks, even if the striker is not yet at peak match sharpness.
“Alex, it will still take a bit of time but he will end up being the player he was at Newcastle if we get him fit, or how he was at Sociedad or all the other clubs he was at – he just needs to become fit,” said the Liverpool boss.
“That is the challenge and it is underestimated so much if you bring a player in on September 1, when the league has already three weeks in.
“I do know that a 100% fit Alexander Isak is a big, big, big plus for this team. But for him to get there, he might need to have minutes where you could argue that another player might further ahead of him in terms of match fitness.
“He did one time a sprint above 30km/h in four months. He didn’t do a lot of high intensity runs. So we had to build him up, which is normal if you have been training on your own. You cannot compare this to a team session.
“If you then get an injury, you are thrown back again. So give him time. The problem is, I play a player – and I have done this with others – who is not 100% of their usual match fitness.
“But then I cannot play friendlies. You can do that in pre-season because you don’t care about the results. But Alex and (Alexis) Mac Allister are the best examples of that. Conor Bradley got injured in pre-season. Ah, I could go on and on.
“That is the challenge with him. I can see in training sessions, if he is fully rested, then you can see his quality. We play in short spaces, so the ball comes a lot to him. But 11 v 11 on a big pitch, there is a lot of running and not much touching the ball. He is an incredible player.”
Slot added: “He did this after he played 45 minutes against Southampton (in the League Cup in September).
“We did some running. People asked why did we do this but it is to build him up. If he plays a game, he has to do more accels and decels. If he does some running, you can give him a bigger tank.
“This morning, I had a conversation with the performance staff: ‘What is the best way for him – not for Liverpool – to get him as fast as we can to that 100%?’. I always have to find the balance between what is the best for him as an individual and for us as a team.”
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