{"id":127827,"date":"2025-10-17T10:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T10:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/127827\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T10:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T10:46:07","slug":"alexander-isaks-pre-season-is-over-arne-slot-liverpool-fc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/127827\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Isak’s ‘pre-season’ is over – Arne Slot – Liverpool FC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arne Slot<\/a> believes Alexander Isak<\/a>\u2018s \u201cpre-season may be finished now\u201d and he can be judged \u201cin a fair way,\u201d after the striker played 180 minutes in four days for Sweden.<\/b><\/p>\n

Isak was managed carefully in his first weeks as a Liverpool player having not been involved in team training throughout July and August.<\/p>\n

His minutes have gradually increased and the expectation was always that he would be up to speed after the October international break.<\/p>\n

While it was an unfortunate one for Sweden, who lost to Switzerland and Kosovo to all but end their World Cup hopes and prompted Jon Dahl Tomasson to be sacked, it was a productive one in terms of Isak\u2019s game time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think now he\u2019s had his five, six weeks of pre-season,\u201d Slot told reporters on Friday, with his No. 9 having played 90 minutes in both of Sweden\u2019s qualifiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is normal for every player, especially if you\u2019ve been out for three or four months.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo fitness-wise I think he\u2019s now close to the level he should be. And now I think we can judge him in a fair way from now on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SEVILLE,<\/p>\n

The spotlight was on Isak during Sweden\u2019s ill-fated break and he failed to score in either of their two games, which left him \u201cf***ing dissatisfied<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile there were goals from Cody Gakpo<\/a> (three), Mohamed Salah<\/a> (two), Alexis Mac Allister<\/a> (two), Virgil van Dijk<\/a> (one) and Dominik Szoboszlai<\/a> (one), with the squad\u2019s time away considered a useful refresh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know how this industry works. If he plays there twice and doesn\u2019t score, then that\u2019s not what you\u2019re hoping for of course,\u201d Slot said of Isak.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re hoping if they go to the national team that they score goals, like Cody did, like Virgil did, like Dominik did, like Mac Allister did. Do I forget a few? Probably.<\/p>\n

\"LIVERPOOL,<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t [score], but I think his pre-season may be finished now, he\u2019s played a few games 70, 80, 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo let\u2019s see where he is in the upcoming weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isak could start against Man United<\/a> on Sunday but finds himself in direct competition with the in-form Hugo Ekitike<\/a>, who claimed an assist on his first start for France and has already scored five times for Liverpool this season.<\/p>\n

Slot is likely to make changes to the side that lost 2-1 at Chelsea<\/a> last time out, with Florian Wirtz<\/a> chief among those expected to come in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arne Slot believes Alexander Isak\u2018s \u201cpre-season may be finished now\u201d and he can be judged \u201cin a fair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[1268,18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-127827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-alexander-isak","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}