Oliver Kay: There are 125 million reasons why Alexander Isak is becoming a big problem for Liverpool
The other player in question,
Hugo Ekitike, made a wonderful start to his Liverpool career, scoring five goals in his first eight appearances and bringing the kind of speed, clever movement and goal threat that Isak was meant to represent. It has led to questions about whether Liverpool even needed Isak, given that both players are of a similar technical profile and that, barring a change of system, there seems to have been little intention to play them in tandem.
The matter is complicated, like so much at Liverpool this season, by the dreadful impact of Diogo Jota’s death, with Slot telling reporters in September that the tragedy meant that the club were effectively forced to bring in two No 9s.
There was a logic behind signing Ekitike and Isak, but
the pressure to build up the latter’s fitness has complicated Slot’s job further at a time when he has already been dealing with various structural and tactical problems, as well as a crisis of confidence. After such a promising start, Ekitike’s momentum has stalled: he has just one goal in his past nine appearances.
Isak’s selection in the starting line-up against Forest on Saturday looked questionable at the time — given that he had played for just 29 minutes (in Sweden) since picking up a hamstring injury at Eintracht Frankfurt in October. It looks worse with hindsight.
Isak was unlikely to have played the entire 90 minutes, no matter how he performed, but the way things transpired, it looked merciful rather than ruthless when Slot replaced him with Federico Chiesa five minutes later. Ekitike will now hope for the chance to lead the line against PSV in the Champions League on Wednesday.