Wayne Rooney delivered a sharp assessment of Liverpool’s selection and recent form after Manchester United beat the Reds 2\u20131. Speaking on The Wayne Rooney Show, he questioned the decision to start Alexander Isak ahead of Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 and placed responsibility on the lack of preparation Isak had before joining the club.<\/p>\n
Isak completed a record-shattering move to Liverpool on deadline day but missed preseason and the first month of the 2025\/26 season. The Swede has struggled to find form since his arrival; he has recorded just one goal and one assist for Liverpool, the lone goal coming against Southampton in the Carabao Cup. In the defeat to Man Utd he managed one shot on target, created zero chances and was on the pitch for 72 minutes.<\/p>\n
Rooney did not hold back on the decision to start Isak. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t play Isak. He hasn\u2019t looked ready since coming from Newcastle,\u201d he said. \u201cHe hasn\u2019t trained, hasn\u2019t had a preseason. It\u2019s so important. While Newcastle were training he was probably sat at home on the phone to his agent for six hours a day trying to get a move.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so difficult when you don\u2019t have a preseason. He might\u2019ve done stuff by himself but he\u2019s paying the price of it. On performances, he doesn\u2019t deserve to be playing ahead of Ekitik\u00e9,\u201d Rooney added.<\/p>\n
Ekitik\u00e9 began the season strongly, scoring five times in his first eight appearances for the Reds, but his minutes have fallen since Isak\u2019s arrival. Liverpool are enduring their worst run of form since 2014, losing four consecutive matches over the past month: Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Manchester United in the Premier League, and Galatasaray in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Rooney warned of complacency and pressure around Arne Slot. \u201cThey\u2019ve got a bit complacent,\u201d he said. \u201cFor Arne Slot, you forget because he won the Premier League, but he\u2019s still quite young\u201446 years of age and this was the first time he\u2019s lost four in a row in his career.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Against Manchester United] he was arguing with the officials on the touchline. I haven\u2019t seen that before from him. We\u2019re starting to see things unfold which shows that there\u2019s pressure there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attention now turns to Liverpool\u2019s Champions League meeting with Frankfurt, where Slot must decide how to integrate Florian Wirtz, Isak and Ekitik\u00e9 into his new-look squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rooney says Isak was unready and questions Arne Slot’s choices as Liverpool suffer four losses. Read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1163],"tags":[195,299,1047],"class_list":["post-3939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-transfers","tag-alexander-isak","tag-arne-slot","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939","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=3939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}