Werner left Anfield on Saturday after watching a display from Alexander Isak that left many questioning what exactly ownership group FSG had bought for their \u00a3125m.<\/p>\n
The Swede was Liverpool’s marquee summer signing, acquired from Newcastle United after a prolonged, acrimonious pursuit that included the striker downing tools to get his move.<\/p>\n
The British record fee came after Liverpool spent \u00a3116m on Germany’s Florian Wirtz, who is yet to record a goal or assist in the Premier League this season.<\/p>\n
Wirtz, who has struggled with the Premier League’s physical intensity and is yet to look a neat fit either in a role behind Liverpool’s striker or out on the left, was out injured against Forest.<\/p>\n
The pair have undoubted quality, but Slot needs to get them delivering very soon. It is the very least \u00a3241m should deliver.<\/p>\n
It was Isak who brought Liverpool’s struggles into sharp relief with an abysmal individual performance against Forest.<\/p>\n
Isak arrived at Liverpool under-cooked after his Newcastle exile, while a groin injury also stalled his settling-in period but, even taking these factors into consideration, he was alarmingly poor before Slot called time on him after 68 minutes.<\/p>\n
Isak, who proved his brilliance on Tyneside, was non-existent, his body language defeatist. Lightweight, lethargic, lost.<\/p>\n
The statistics deliver a damning indictment. Isak had 14 touches, 11 in the first half, only two in the opening 25 minutes.<\/p>\n
Isak’s lack of impact prompted justifiable claims that even the much-maligned and now departed Darwin Nunez would have at least run around a bit in a bid to make things happen.<\/p>\n
Hugo Ekitike has been the success of Liverpool’s summer incomings, but Slot’s decision to start with Isak meant the Frenchman was reduced to a substitute’s role, playing on the left-flank against Forest when he came on after 55 minutes.<\/p>\n
Ekitike is Liverpool’s top scorer with six this season and has also scored his first goal for France. Selecting Isak ahead of him lacked logic, smacking of a manager groping for answers, almost trying to get an expensive signing to play himself into the team.<\/p>\n
There is little evidence, so far, that both can play together. At a cost of almost \u00a3200m, it looks like one or other must settle for a place on the bench.<\/p>\n
Ekitike has shown quality. Isak, for now, remains a very costly problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Werner left Anfield on Saturday after watching a display from Alexander Isak that left many questioning what exactly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-282734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}