Alexander Isak completed his first full 90 minutes of the season on Friday but emerged from a difficult international outing with more questions than answers. He was booed off with the rest of his Sweden teammates after a 2\u20130 defeat to Switzerland in which he touched the ball just 31 times.<\/p>\n
Isak has made six appearances for Liverpool to date but has played just over 300 minutes in total. Manager Arne Slot had warned supporters they would need to be patient while Isak worked his way back to full fitness, and that context shaped expectations heading into the World Cup qualifier.<\/p>\n
Sweden manager Jon Dahl Tomasson declared Isak fit to start, yet Switzerland moved comfortably clear thanks to a penalty from Granit Xhaka and a goal from teenager Johan Manzambi. During his 90 minutes, Isak registered a single shot, which was off target, and his 31 touches were the fewest of any outfield player to complete the match.<\/p>\n
Isak was not the only source of frustration. Arsenal striker Viktor Gy\u00f6keres, who also played the full game alongside him, produced two off-target efforts and recorded 33 touches, marginally more involvement than Isak.<\/p>\n
The underlying issue for Isak is physical readiness for a full match. A less than ideal pre-season left his Liverpool minutes coming in fits and spurts, limiting his ability to build sharpness and rhythm. Before the loss, Isak addressed the media and offered an encouraging message for Slot and for Liverpool.<\/p>\n
“I think I\u2019m ready,” he vowed. “We\u2019ll take it one game at a time. I am ready to play 90 minutes, if necessary.” Those words will be noted by Liverpool supporters, but the immediate reality is demanding. With pressure on Sweden manager Tomasson rising, Isak could be asked to play another full 90 in Monday\u2019s meeting with Kosovo, reducing recovery time ahead of Liverpool\u2019s Premier League trip to face Manchester United on Sunday Oct. 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Isak completed 90 minutes but had just 31 touches in Sweden’s 2\u20130 defeat to Switzerland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961,175],"tags":[1081,195,299],"class_list":["post-3709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-liverpool","tag-adaptation","tag-alexander-isak","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709","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=3709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}