Burnley vs Liverpool: Isak not included in Slot’s squad

Alexander Isak has not been included in Liverpool’s squad for their clash with Burnley following his deadline day transfer from Newcastle United.

Isak joined the Premier League champions in a British-record £125 million deal having not played a competitive game since the final day of last season.

He was called up to represent the Sweden in the recent international break, however he was an unused substitute against Slovenia before playing just 18 minutes in a 2-0 defeat to Kosovo.

Asked to assess Isak’s fitness in a news conference on Friday, Liverpool boss Arne Slot said: “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.”

Slot has instead chosen to stick with the same starting XI that beat Arsenal 1-0 last time out, with summer signing Hugo Ekitike leading the line.