{"id":367158,"date":"2025-12-23T18:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T18:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/367158\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T18:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T18:00:07","slug":"how-will-liverpool-cope-without-alexander-isak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/367158\/","title":{"rendered":"How will Liverpool cope without Alexander Isak?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arne Slot has faced challenge after challenge this season, from Liverpool<\/a>‘s horrid run of nine defeats in 12 to Mohamed Salah’s explosive interview at Leeds<\/a>. <\/p>\n

How Slot deals without Alexander Isak is the next big question.<\/p>\n

The Swede has hardly had a flying start to life at Anfield since making the \u00a3125m move from Newcastle<\/a> in the summer, but the movement and finish for his goal against Tottenham<\/a> on Saturday showed exactly why Liverpool<\/a> signed him. <\/p>\n

“You need to be at the top of the game to impact a game. And it took months before we could bring him up. We always knew it would take him time. And that’s why it’s so unlucky that he’s now injured,” said Slot. <\/p>\n

“We all saw he was getting closer and closer to the player that he was last season at Newcastle<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Slot said it is a “long injury” and Isak would be out for “a couple of months” and that is probably the best case scenario for Liverpool<\/a>. It will, in all likelihood, be March by the time Isak can play football again. <\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether Liverpool<\/a> will make a move for another attacker in January, with expensive solutions to short-term problems not part of the club model.<\/p>\n

Hugo Ekitike is also thriving with eight league goals this season, with Slot saying the 23-year-old has “already adapted to the Premier League.”<\/p>\n

Asked about the possibility of recalling Harvey Elliott – who hasn’t played since October – from Aston Villa<\/a>, Slot said: “Harvey is an Aston Villa<\/a> player and he is supposed to be going there for a year. If the question is about him then the best thing to ask is at Villa, who are doing quite well by the way.”<\/p>\n

Isak has only made 10 starts for Liverpool<\/a> since signing but with him now out of contention and Salah away on duty at the African Cup of Nations, Slot may be forced into a tactical restructure to deal with the Swede’s absence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arne Slot has faced challenge after challenge this season, from Liverpool‘s horrid run of nine defeats in 12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-367158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}