LIVERPOOL, England (AP) – Alexander Isak’s lackluster start to his Liverpool career was dealt another blow when he suffered a groin injury in the Champions League against Eintracht Frankfurt.
Swedish striker signed from Newcastle uk record fees A transfer fee of 125 million pounds (approximately $170 million) at the end of the summer transfer window was withdrawn at half-time of Wednesday’s 5-1 win.
It was Liverpool’s second injury of the night, with right-back Jeremy Frimpong already forced off midway through the first half with a hamstring problem.
Isak has sharpened his game in recent weeks after training away from Newcastle’s main squad in pre-season as he moves towards a move to Liverpool. He has scored just one goal in eight competitive games for his new club.
Liverpool manager Arne Slott said last week that given the player’s checkered pre-season, now was the only time he could give a fair assessment of Isak.
“I hope it’s not too bad, but I had to leave because he touched my groin,” Slott said. “A lot of people wanted me to play him more, so I had to find a balance, and unfortunately that balance didn’t quite work out today. But let’s hope for the best.”
Slott spoke about the difficulty of managing Isak’s minutes last month and said the fact that the striker had played twice for Sweden in recent international matches strengthened his confidence that he was ready to seize a starting role.
“When he came to the club, he hardly trained,” said the Dutchman. “So, you take him step by step, and you feel there must be a moment when he can play twice a week, and the first time we tried, he did that in Sweden too, but he had to be sent off.
“Normally you try to prepare the players for one game of football a week, but with Liverpool they play every three days or normally they play three times in eight days, but this season they have been unlucky, they have to play three times in seven days.
“We’ve been trying to prepare him for that, we’ve been very careful and he was perfectly fit when he came back from the national team before the game against (Manchester) United on Sunday. We thought he was well prepared for it, but the gap at the top was small.”
Frimpong endured a stop-start season in his first season at Liverpool after joining from Bayer Leverkusen.
Slott said the Dutch international would be out for “a few weeks”.
___
AP Soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
