{"id":695964,"date":"2026-05-26T15:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/695964\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T15:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:53:09","slug":"liverpool-fc-news-alexander-isak-florian-wirtz-hugo-ekitike-rating-all-signings-in-record-spree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/695964\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool FC news: Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike – rating all signings in record spree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isak arrived with high expectations after forcing his way out of Newcastle United<\/a> to join for a record fee of \u00a3125m. <\/p>\n

But the Sweden striker has endured a year to forget, with a serious ankle injury that included a fibula fracture ruling him out for three months and other smaller issues affecting his availability.<\/p>\n

Isak netted 54 goals from 86 appearances in the Premier League for Newcastle<\/a> but scored just three times in 14 top-flight appearances for Liverpool<\/a>, albeit six of those games were from off the bench. <\/p>\n

“Availability is the best ability”, the saying goes, and Liverpool<\/a> need Isak to play a lot more than the 1,033 minutes he managed in 2025-26, especially with Ekitike out for a long period. <\/p>\n

When fit, Isak showed flashes of his class – such as the touch and finish against Crystal Palace<\/a> – and a prime task for Liverpool<\/a> next season will be to improve their ability to get their central striker involved in the game.<\/p>\n

In 2025-26, it was routinely poor no matter who was in the role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isak arrived with high expectations after forcing his way out of Newcastle United to join for a record…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-695964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695964","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=695964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}