Last season’s big money £125M move to join Liverpool from Newcastle couldn’t have gone much worse that it did for Alexander Isak, with the Sweden international struggling for fitness after sitting out pre-season to force the move then missing much of the season due to injury right as he looked to be close to fully match fit.
That significantly impacted his ability to play for his country, with Sweden stumbling fortuitously into the World Cup without him before Isak was finally able to play again by
the time the summer tournament kicked off. Now, with four Nations League matches up for his country during the international break, he’s set to log big minutes—and Liverpool fans will be hoping his legs can hold up.
“It’s not about rotating for the sake of rotating as we want to win and will try to play with strongest team in every game,” said Sweden manager Graham Potter. “Alex has played a lot of games lately, is in a good place, and as I know him he wants to start games—but we still need to see how everyone is and how they recover.
“Can Isak start every game? Potentially, but there’s no chance he’ll play all the minutes. But it can be hard to plan anything ahead too much. You just have to focus on the next game and try to win it. It’s never easy to win games and the next game is always the most important game.”
Potter added he hadn’t received any requests from Liverpool about managing Isak’s minutes or to suggest he might not physically be up to starting four games for his country over the next two weeks. Sweden are set to take on Romania on Friday before facing Poland on Monday. Bosnia and Herzegovina are up on Friday, October 2nd and they wrap against Romania on Monday October 5th.
