The #LFC boss admits he has a bit of a tricky situation with the £125m man 👇

Slot and Isak

Arne Slot admits he may have to compromise his Liverpool team selection in an attempt to finally get Alexander Isak up and running.

But the Reds boss remains convinced the striker will ultimately replicate his devastating Newcastle United form at the Premier League champions.

Isak has suffered a difficult opening to his Liverpool career since making a British record £125million move on transfer deadline day in September, scoring just one goal in eight appearances.

The 26-year-old is continuing to play catch-up in terms of overall fitness having missed out on a proper pre-season after being banished from the Newcastle first-team squad in the summer as he sought a move to Anfield.

Having not featured in the Premier League for more than a month, Isak is pressing for a starting role in Saturday's visit of Nottingham Forest ahead of fellow summer signing Hugo Ekitike, who by contrast has had an impressive start to life with the Reds.

And Slot accepts he could be compelled to play Isak ahead of others during upcoming games despite the player not being fully match fit.

Slot

"Alex, it will still take a bit of time but he will end up being the player he was at Newcastle if we get him fit, or how he was at Sociedad or all the other clubs he was at – he just needs to become fit,"

“That is the challenge and it is underestimated so much if you bring a player in on September 1, when the league has already three weeks in.

"I do know that a 100% fit Alexander Isak is a big, big, big plus for this team. But for him to get there, he might need to have minutes where you could argue that another player might further ahead of him in terms of match fitness.

"He did one time a sprint above 30km/h in four months. He didn’t do a lot of high intensity runs.

“So we had to build him up, which is normal if you have been training on your own. You cannot compare this to a team session.”

"If you then get an injury, you are thrown back again. So give him time. The problem is, I play a player – and I have done this with others – who is not 100% of their usual match fitness.

"But then I cannot play friendlies. You can do that in pre-season because you don’t care about the results. But Alex and (Alexis) Mac Allister are the best examples of that.

“Conor Bradley got injured in pre-season. Ah, I could go on and on.

"That is the challenge with him. I can see in training sessions, if he is fully rested, then you can see his quality. We play in short spaces, so the ball comes a lot to him.

“But 11 v 11 on a big pitch, there is a lot of running and not much touching the ball. He is an incredible player."

Hopes Isak - who scored 62 goals in 109 appearances for Newcastle - would bolster his sharpness during the recent international break were hampered by him being restricted to one 28-minute appearance for Sweden,

with new national team boss Graham Potter opting not to risk a suspension for the player in next March's World Cup qualifying play-offs.

And Slot has explained how talks continue to take place in an attempt to find new ways of fast-tracking Isak to full fitness.

Slot said

"He did this after he played 45 minutes against Southampton (in the League Cup in September),"

"We did some running. People asked why did we do this but it is to build him up. If he plays a game, he has to do more accels and decels. If he does some running, you can give him a bigger tank.”

“This morning, I had a conversation with the performance staff: 'What is the best way for him – not for Liverpool – to get him as fast as we can to that 100%?'.

“ I always have to find the balance between what is the best for him as an individual and for us as a team."

Liverpool face a selection headache at right-back with Conor Bradley joining Jeremie Frimpong on the sidelines for the next three weeks with a muscle problem.

“Joe Gomez, Dominik Szoboszlai and Wataru Endo have all featured in the position this season while Curtis Jones is another option.”

Slot will welcome back goalkeeper Alisson Becker after seven weeks out with a hamstring problem but £116million attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz is out.