Arne Slot has confirmed Alexander Isak resumed work on grass this week, but warned Liverpool supporters the striker remains some way from match action.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlex has been on the pitch with his running shoes for the first time this week so it will still be a while,\u201d Slot explained. He added a cautious timetable: \u201cIt will be somewhere around the international break, depends on if he gets a setback. End of March, start of April when he\u2019s back with the group. Doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s ready to start playing straight away.\u201d Slot also said it was \u201cclear\u201d that Isak is on track to return this season, while stopping short of a firm date.<\/p>\n
Isak\u2019s injury was a fractured fibula sustained in the act of scoring against Tottenham Hotspur. The setback came at a moment when the striker had been threatening to rediscover form. Following his \u00a3125 million ($169.1 million) move from Newcastle United in the summer, Isak has managed two goals in 10 Premier League games.<\/p>\n
Slot stressed the potential impact of a fit Isak. \u201cIt will give us a different player to we had now but we\u2019re expecting a different player at the end of this season compared to what he has done up to now,\u201d Slot predicted. \u201cUnfortunately for him and us we haven\u2019t seen the best Alex. We will next season.\u201d<\/p>\n
An April return to group training would still leave a recovery period before Isak could be considered for selection, but it would give him time to influence the closing stages of the campaign. Liverpool face important fixtures in May that could affect the race for Champions League qualification. Manchester United, Chelsea and Aston Villa\u2014currently fourth, fifth and third\u2014are all on the agenda.<\/p>\n
Fixture<\/p>\n
Crystal Palace (H) \u2014 April 25
\nMan Utd (A) \u2014 May 2
\nChelsea (H) \u2014 May 9
\nAston Villa (A) \u2014 May 17<\/p>\n
Isak will aim to regain full fitness in time to alter the course of a season that has so far fallen short of expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot says Isak back on grass but a return to team training is likely end of March or early April….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1125],"tags":[195,299,1384],"class_list":["post-6952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-strikers","tag-alexander-isak","tag-arne-slot","tag-broken-leg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6952","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=6952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}