Speaking to the press ahead of Sunday’s match against Burnley, Liverpool head coach Arne Slot was asked to comment on the chance of Alexander Isak getting game time. Slot was complimentary in reflecting on the Swedish striker’s international minutes over the break:
“First of all I think the Swedish manager, Jon Dahl Tomasson, deserves a big, big, big compliment because he gets one of the best, maybe the best striker in the world in and needs to play two very important games for his country, but understands
if he would play him twice for 90 minutes the player would have probably been injured for multiple weeks. That is not always easy for a manager, that he takes care of the interest of the player, so he deserves a big compliment for that and we will treat Alex the same as they did.
“So, don’t expect him every single game 90 minutes on the pitch – that’s definitely not going to happen in the upcoming weeks. He missed a proper pre-season, I think he missed three or four months of team sessions, so now we have to build him up gradually with us playing so many games and [having] very little training time. So, that’s going to be a challenge but we’ve signed him not only for the upcoming two weeks, we’ve signed him, I think, for six years so this is what we have to keep in mind and what the fans have to keep in mind if they see that I take him off at a certain moment or I only bring him in for a small amount of minutes. That’s all for the long-term fitness of the player.”
In speaking of Isak’s character, the Liverpool boss gave away very little, instead stressing their limited time together:
“Maybe people don’t believe me if I give you this answer but I haven’t spoken to him that much. So, I spoke to him after he signed by phone because he had to go to the national team and the way I, 99 out of 100 times, treat my players during international breaks is I leave them for the manager they are working with over there. So, I texted him now maybe once or twice because he is new to us [and] I wanted to know how he did. But I do have to get to know him as a person much better in the upcoming days and weeks. But although we find it very important how someone is because we have such a great culture here at this club, we mainly sign a player also for his qualities and therefore I don’t need to call them. We faced him a few times, I faced him a few times, and I know what a quality player he is.”
Slot gave very little away, but did not rule out Isak getting some minutes in coming days — even if he’s not available to start.
