Arne Slot has outlined a measured plan for Alexander Isak\u2019s introduction to Liverpool, saying the forward will be fit to play a minimum of 45 minutes in one of the club\u2019s fixtures this week. The manager indicated that could come in Wednesday\u2019s Champions League opener against Atl\u00e9tico Madrid or in the Merseyside derby at the weekend.<\/p>\n
Slot said Isak\u2019s move to Anfield was delayed after the player removed himself from Newcastle United training, and that the club have chosen to prioritise structured preparation over a token cameo. Slot also made clear he avoided bringing Isak on for a short appearance at Turf Moor so the forward could be readied for more significant minutes later in the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlex is far from ready for that schedule of three games in a week, 90 minutes,\u201d Slot outlined after watching his Isak-less outfit earn a scratchy 1\u20130 win over Burnley. \u201cBut then we could use him today for five minutes, and then on Wednesday again, 10 and then 15, but we don\u2019t believe that is the way to build him up. In Sweden, they did the right thing of giving him good sessions without playing him a lot, because if you play the player, you can\u2019t give him good sessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did the same, so now he will be able, either Wednesday or Saturday, to play 45 minutes as a minimum and maybe a little bit more but if he plays 45 on Wednesday, don\u2019t expect him to play 45 or more on Saturday because his body is not prepared for that in our opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reports suggested Isak spent much of the off-season practising alone, firing shots into an empty goal and passing the ball off stationary walls. The 25-year-old\u2019s workload has been increased during his first days at Liverpool as the club seeks to give him a base of quality sessions ahead of match minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did recovery [on Sunday],\u201d Slot revealed. \u201cHe had a hard and tough session [on Saturday]. It\u2019s not that difficult to understand. So if you start the season when players who have been out for three to five weeks, you give them a certain base, you give them a lot of good sessions before they\u2019re able at the end of the week to play 45 minutes. ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot says Isak will be built up with training and should be able to play 45 minutes this week (45m)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,969],"tags":[195,299],"class_list":["post-2818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-premier-league","tag-alexander-isak","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}