Alexander Isak made a notable first appearance for Liverpool in the dramatic 3\u20132 victory against Atl\u00e9tico Madrid, playing 60 minutes after being left out of the matchday squad for the weekend win over Burnley. Manager Arne Slot had cautioned supporters that the new striker was not ready for extended minutes, saying anything beyond 45 would be a surprise, yet he was forced to reassess after the match.<\/p>\n
Slot offered a measured assessment of Isak\u2019s first outing. \u201cI was positively surprised by how fit he was during that 60 minutes but that maybe, probably, tells you that it might be a difference to sign a 20-year-old from a different league or a 25- or 26-year-old that is used to playing in this league,\u201d Slot confessed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough he only trained for two weeks, he has so many games under his belt that he is probably more able to be ready for 60.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I was positively surprised how fit he was, I wasn\u2019t surprised by his quality because that\u2019s what we all know. You don\u2019t have to be a manager to recognise how much quality he has. But it\u2019s always nice to see if a player starts the way he starts, like Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 [who] started the same as he did.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, a good start, only 60 minutes and now we have to build him up from here. But I can tell you he is not going to play 90 again on Saturday [against Everton].\u201d<\/p>\n
Isak\u2019s introduction came with the manager deciding to use another forward from the bench. Replacing Isak was Hugo Ekitik\u00e9, the French striker who has scored three goals in six games since arriving in England. Slot was clear that the pair will figure in his plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really happy [Isak] could start today. That\u2019s why we didn\u2019t play him against Burnley,\u201d Slot continued. \u201cHe was good today and when Hugo came in, he was a big factor also.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have two great No. 9s and we\u2019re going to use them, both of them, throughout the whole period they\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot\u2019s comments underline a careful approach to integrating Isak while maintaining momentum from the opening wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot was surprised by Isak’s fitness in his 60-minute debut and says he will not play 90 on Saturday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[195,299],"class_list":["post-2881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","tag-alexander-isak","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2881","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=2881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}