New surroundings: Alexander Isak has trained with his Liverpool team-mates for the first time in recent days
Liverpool FC via Getty Images
Arne Slot has issued a new update on Alexander Isak’s fitness ahead of a potential debut for Liverpool this weekend.
Excitement is high among the Reds fanbase to catch a first glimpse of the new British record signing in action against Burnley on Sunday after he finally completed a high-profile £125million move from Newcastle on Deadline Day following one of the summer’s longest-running transfer sagas.
Isak has trained at Kirkby for the first time in recent days after returning from international duty with Sweden, where he came off the bench for the final 18 minutes of Monday night’s shock 2-0 defeat by Kosovo in World Cup qualifying having not played at all in last week’s 2-2 draw with Slovenia.
Sweden coach Jon Dahl Tomasson said ahead of those games that he would not “do anything crazy” with regards to Isak’s workload following talks with Liverpool counterpart Slot and between the respective team physios, with the player having not featured at all for Newcastle during the early stages of the new season as he effectively went on strike to try and force through a move to Anfield.
He also did not play once during pre-season and had been training away from the first-team squad on Tyneside.
Slot has now looked to temper Liverpool supporters’ expectations with regards to Isak’s involvement in the coming weeks, insisting he will not be playing full matches for a little while and needs time to build up his fitness.
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"The Swedish manager deserves a big, big compliment because he gets maybe the best striker in the world and he needs to play two very important games for his country but understands that if he would play him twice for 90 minutes then the player would be injured for multiple weeks and that is not always easy for a manager that he takes care of the interest of a player,” Slot told reporters ahead of the trip to Turf Moor.
"We will treat Alex [Isak] the same as they did so don't expect him to be [playing] every single game 90 minutes on the pitch as that is definitely not going to happen in the upcoming weeks.
"He missed a proper pre-season and I think he missed three to four months of team sessions so now we have to build him up gradually with us playing so many games.
“That is going to be a challenge but we have not signed him for the next two weeks, we have signed him for six years and the fans have to keep this in mind.”