Arne Slot has named the Liverpool match that Alexander Isak should be available for after three months out with a broken leg
Arne Slot says Alexander Isak will be back in time for Liverpool’s Champions League quarter-final clash with Paris Saint-Germain next month.
But the Reds boss has urged caution regarding when supporters can expect to see the best of the £125m striker, who has been injured since late last year.
Isak broke his leg in the 2-1 win at Tottenham Hotspur on December 20 when he was caught by defender Micky van de Ven after opening the scoring following his second-half introduction.
The Sweden star is back in light training but won’t be linking up with his international team-mates during the break as he continues to go through the final stages of his rehab before returning to action with his club colleagues.
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Slot says the prospect of arranging a behind-closed-doors friendly for Isak’s benefit is a possibility but confirmed the former Newcastle United frontman is yet to re-join team training at the club’s AXA Centre base in Kirkby.
And while the Reds boss is ready to welcome a striker of the 26-year-old’s class back with open arms, the Dutch coach concedes it will be next term – after a full pre-season schedule – when the fans will finally get to see the most expensive footballer in British history back to his best.
“Alex will available [for PSG], yes,” Slot confirmed on Friday in the embargoed section of his press conference. “The question is what you mean around ‘being ready’.
“If you want to have the player who played exactly a year ago against us in the Carabao Cup final – and was too good for us on that day – then I would tell you I have my doubts about that after seven or eight months out.
“But I expect that I can use him for minutes. Exactly what I get from that I cannot tell you because he hasn’t trained with the team even once.
“He still is not able to train with the team and he hasn’t been able to train with the team and usual rehab is before you start to train with the team and then you play games. You don’t, after one training session, play 45 minutes or 90 minutes.
“If we want to play a game [during the international break], we will have to ask if three-versus-three is possible. We have the Under-21s team but Alex is not yet ready to play in the international break. If he would have been, he would have been with Sweden.
“It is 100% sure fans will see the best of him next season and we are trying to make sure that we will see close to the best or the best of him this season.
“I am just as excited as the fans to have him back because I think it is fair to say that 90% of our games, we’ve had more chances than the other team, so if we had one of the best strikers in the world playing for you then that would have usually, usually, meant that you would have had more points.
“So that everyone is excited, apart from the fact that he was so good at Newcastle, I can understand it. I don’t want to downgrade it too much because I think he can have an impact when he is back [this season].
“But if you tell me it is more realistic to expect that next season from him than against Man City or PSG – I don’t think he is available for Man City (FA Cup quarter-final on April 4) by the way – but we will use him in the upcoming two months. That is for sure.”
Slot added: “Alex returning for an under-21s game is a question I cannot answer now but that is a question that goes through your mind. Not only with Alex but also with other players in the past.
“We can always arrange a friendly and if we think it is necessary for him to play a game then we would definitely do that but if it was so simple that we play him in one game and then he is the player from the final last season again then that would be nice.
“But we also have pre-season and maybe he can also do one week there and say ‘okay, let’s start to play’. So maybe a normal player, after they can run again, has a six-week lead-up to the season, sometimes even seven. So yeah, they don’t usually play at their best in the first game of pre-season.”
