Isak inspires Liverpool win

IT was meant to be the moment that finally kick-started the season for Alexander Isak.

Liverpool’s £125m signing had come off the bench and finished wonderfully past Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario to give Arne Slot’s side the lead on Saturday.

On the touchline, Slot was ecstatic after seeing Isak combine with Florian Wirtz, who got his first English Premier League football assist after signing for £116m in the summer.

With Mohamed Salah in Morocco on Africa Cup of Nations duty and Cody Gakpo out with injury, here was a glimpse of Liverpool’s future. And the first sign of a connection between Liverpool’s two record signings. Yet within seconds, that joy turned to concern as Isak lay on the floor in agony after Micky van de Ven’s tackle. As his team-mates gathered around him, it became clear that Isak would be unable to continue.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” said Slot. “But if a player scores and then gets injured and doesn’t try to come back on the pitch, that’s usually not a good thing.” It looks ominous indeed.

For Liverpool, who have seemingly turned a corner and are now unbeaten in six, the problems continue to mount though with Isak and Conor Bradley both facing a spell on the sidelines. To sum up their misfortune in a nutshell, Bradley was taken off at half-time after a knock for Isak. On the hour mark, Isak came off for Jeremie Frimpong, who was playing his first game since October.

Frimpong then failed to finish the game as he was replaced by Federico Chiesa in the 90th minute, though Slot insisted that the full-back would be fine and that he simply didn’t want to take the risk of playing for 30 seconds with 10 men. — BBC Sport.