Alexander Isak signs for Liverpool FC at AXA Training Centre on September 01, 2025 in Kirkby, England.placeholder image
Alexander Isak signs for Liverpool FC at AXA Training Centre on September 01, 2025 in Kirkby, England. | Liverpool FC via Getty Images
Alexander Isak joined Liverpool for £130m from Newcastle United but has been left out of their squad at Burnley.
Newcastle United sold Isak to the Reds on deadline day for a British record £130million after the Swede ultimately forced his exit.
Liverpool unsettled Isak with an informal approach just days after he reported back for pre-season in Austria. And from then on, things unravelled.
Isak missed the Magpies’ opening friendly away to Celtic and sat out of the tour of Asia. When Eddie Howe’s squad returned to England, Isak went on strike, refusing to train or play with his teammates.
Why Alexander Isak is missing for Liverpool against Burnley
The 25-year-old’s refusal to play has left him short of match fitness, which is the reason for his omission for Liverpool’s visit to Turf Moor. Isak did link up with Sweden during the international break but only played 20 minutes in total.
Speaking about Isak pre-match, Reds boss Arne Slot said: “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.
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“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.”
Eddie Howe discusses Alexander Isak’s Newcastle United exit
Howe addressed Isak’s exit prior to Saturday’s 1-0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers and said: “I think Alex and I always enjoyed a great relationship. I loved working with him, I hope that he loved working with us. It was mutually beneficial, I think we helped him become the player that he, in part, is today and he helped us as a team achieve some unbelievable milestones and of course he was part of a very successful team.
“I think, just giving you a bit more on that, I think the moment that he went on strike our relationship did change. And yeah, I think that was probably a turning point in our relationship.”
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