Arne Slot gives in-depth Alexander Isak appraisal - and names Liverpool players he's missing

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Risk is not a good word."He had a lot of workload is the way we describe it and I would be surprised when it comes to Alex’s name that they don't say anything but I think he is getting closer and closer to having regular starts so it could mean he plays tomorrow or it could mean he plays Tuesday. I think physically after three or four months now he is getting closer and closer to that situation where he plays more, which we have already seen because I have played in two in a row."At St James' Park, the Eddie Howe gameplan was tailored to present Isak with the best chances to score, with Jacob Murphy, in particular, a creative force for supplying his team-mate.Many of the winger's 12 assists last time out were for the former Real Sociedad man but at Anfield, he is having to modify his game to thrive with forwards like Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo, who will regularly cut inside and are tasked with sharing the goalscoring burden."With Jeremie Frimpong being injured and Conor Bradley being out, it is not like we have so many options on the right-hand side and it is a bit similar on the left side," argues Slot.

But the Alexander Isak who scored so many goals for Newcastle and was then standing there when we played the League Cup final and I thought: ‘I would love to have him in my team’ - he has presence."Presence also comes with confidence and confidence comes with scoring a lot of goals and wins. He definitely has this presence, that’s what I felt and I think what our players felt when we played against him last season."Gerard Houllier used to suggest, over two decades ago, that he would only be worried about Michael Owen's occasional droughts if the chances were drying up rather than the goals and, while such a stance remains a universal truth for the game's deadliest centre-forwards, Isak is having to feast off scraps in that regard at present.The 26-year-old has had just three shots on target inside the 18-yard box in his seven league appearances, which equates to one effort on goal every 158 minutes so far with the Reds.

It's far from an ideal return three months into his career on Merseyside, even if Slot will always attempt to look at things with a wider lens.There is, though, a train of thought that suggests the ever dwindling attention span in the modern game has made it easier to forget that Isak, for all the indifference of recent weeks, had 54 Premier League goals in just 86 Newcastle appearances before he moved."I think I said back then that we signed him for six years, not for three months," Slot argues. But I have no doubt that eventually he will become the player we signed him to be.