Press conferenceArne Slot on Alexander Isak: Fitness, potential debut and why he wanted him at Liverpool

The head coach previewed the Reds’ visit to Burnley at the AXA Training Centre – his first media appearance since Isak signed for the Premier League champions on transfer deadline day.

See a summary of Slot’s words on the striker below.

On transfer deadline day…

A lot of things happened on the last day, which is not always the situation because last season we hardly did anything during the whole window, but the thing that pleases me most, of course, is getting Alex – the deal for Alex – over the line. Richard [Hughes], ownership, everyone involved worked so hard to get that deal done and it’s very good for the club, for our fans, for the players, for me, that all the work they’ve put in resulted in Alex signing for us.

On how ready Isak is to play and whether he will make his Liverpool debut at Turf Moor…

First of all I think the Swedish manager, Jon Dahl Tomasson, deserves a big, big, big compliment because he gets one of the best, maybe the best striker in the world in and needs to play two very important games for his country, but understands if he would play him twice for 90 minutes the player would have probably been injured for multiple weeks. That is not always easy for a manager, that he takes care of the interest of the player, so he deserves a big compliment for that and we will treat Alex the same as they did.

So, don’t expect him every single game 90 minutes on the pitch – that’s definitely not going to happen in the upcoming weeks. He missed a proper pre-season, I think he missed three or four months of team sessions, so now we have to build him up gradually with us playing so many games and [having] very little training time. So, that’s going to be a challenge but we’ve signed him not only for the upcoming two weeks, we’ve signed him, I think, for six years so this is what we have to keep in mind and what the fans have to keep in mind if they see that I take him off at a certain moment or I only bring him in for a small amount of minutes. That’s all for the long-term fitness of the player.

On his first impressions of Isak as a person…

Maybe people don’t believe me if I give you this answer but I haven’t spoken to him that much. So, I spoke to him after he signed by phone because he had to go to the national team and the way I, 99 out of 100 times, treat my players during international breaks is I leave them for the manager they are working with over there. So, I texted him now maybe once or twice because he is new to us [and] I wanted to know how he did. But I do have to get to know him as a person much better in the upcoming days and weeks. But although we find it very important how someone is because we have such a great culture here at this club, we mainly sign a player also for his qualities and therefore I don’t need to call them. We faced him a few times, I faced him a few times, and I know what a quality player he is.