Alexander Isak is targeting Liverpool’s home match against Atletico Madrid for his Reds bow at Anfield on 17 September.
Isak joined Liverpool on deadline day in a British-record £125m transfer from Newcastle but was left out of the matchday squad for Liverpool’s trip to Burnley today (14 September), owing to having only played 19 minutes for Sweden in the international window.
His brief appearance for Sweden also came without any proper pre-season training behind him at Newcastle after he refused to join up with the squad, in an attempt to force a move to Liverpool in July which didn’t materialise until 1 September.
Slot consequently decided to leave Isak out of the squad for the Premier League clash at Burnley with view to preparing him to make his club debut at home in their Champions League opener against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday evening at Anfield.
“As everybody knew, he didn’t have any team training at Newcastle, then went to the national team [and] only played there for 15 to 20 minutes,” explained Liverpool manager – Slot in a pre-match interview with Sky Sports who felt that his absence was the best preparation for the Swedish forward.
“We think, with a week where we play three games in seven days, this is the best lead-up for him to be available against Atletico Madrid.
“That’s always difficult to say [how quickly he will be] up to full speed. What I can say is that normally in a pre-season, after one or two weeks you play your first 45 to 60 minutes, you build that up gradually.
“But that you do with proper training sessions during the week, and now we hardly have any proper training sessions with the team because we play, like I just said, three games in seven days.
“So, where would he be? Second or third week of pre-season, I would say, so able to hopefully play during the week 45 minutes or more, but then two days later, as you know, we play Everton again.”
Slot added that the Reds’ performance staff face a challenge in extracting the best from Isak at the start of the game, whilst ensuring that he is available for the closing minutes.
“It’s going to be interesting for the performance staff, for us, to get the best out of him at the start but also to keep him available for the end.”
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