Liverpool are not playing to Alexander Isak’s strengths, Arne Slot admits

Arne Slot has conceded Liverpool are not bringing the best out of record signing Alexander Isak and must maximise his strengths in the manner Manchester City do with Erling Haaland.

The £125m striker scored his first Premier League goal for Liverpool in last Sunday’s win at West Ham but was unable to build on that breakthrough against Sunderland on Wednesday. Isak had another quiet game. Slot has repeatedly defended Isak’s slow start as an inevitable consequence of missing pre-season with Newcastle, when he effectively downed tools to force his exit, but Liverpool’s head coach admits his team are also culpable for the player’s problems.

“He is not the only No 9 who suffers in some games from not getting many chances,” said Slot, who has Conor Bradley back from injury for Saturday’s trip to Leeds. “At this level it’s not like the No 9 is involved in eight, nine, 10 chances every single half. But it is obvious and clear that we want to bring him into more threatening situations.

“Before we went to only one goal conceded in two games [West Ham and Sunderland] we had a lot of chances. Because we are a little bit more compact and not taking as many risks, we have not been able to create as many chances as all of the games before. It is definitely one of the things on my list of things to improve to get our No 9 more involved in the game and more involved in the final third.”

Isak has averaged only 14 touches per game in his last three starts for Liverpool but Slot insists it is where he touches the ball, not how often, that counts. “Do you know how many times he touched the ball at Newcastle on average? Twenty-two,” he said. “In this league strikers don’t touch the ball that much but a few times they do touch it, it’s quite nice if they finish it off. I have no clue what the stats of Haaland are but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t touch it 100 times a game, but he does score a lot. It is more important that they touch the ball in the right times than to touch it so many times. Haaland touches it much more where it matters and that’s where we need to improve. It is clear and obvious.”