Alexander Isak will be fit for Liverpool’s Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain – but Arne Slot has warned he is only likely to be a substitute.
Slot, though, believes Liverpool might see Isak at close to his best by the end of this season after the £125m man has had a negligible impact in his first season at Anfield.
Isak has only scored three goals in 17 appearances since his move from Newcastle and has been sidelined since December with a broken leg, necessitating surgery on his lower ankle.
He will sit out Sweden’s World Cup qualifiers in the international break and Slot does not believe the striker will be back in contention for the FA Cup quarter-final at Manchester City on 3 April.
Slot feels he could make his comeback in the Parc des Princes four days later. “He will available [for PSG], yes,” he said.
“The question is what you mean around ‘ready’. If you want to have the player who played exactly a year ago against us in the Carabao Cup final, and was too good for us on that day, then I would tell you I have my doubts about that after seven or eight months out.
“But I expect that I can use him for minutes. Exactly what I get from that I cannot tell you because he hasn’t trained with the team even once.
“He still is not able to train with the team and he hasn’t been able to train with the team and usual rehab is before you start to train with the team and then you play games. You don’t, after one training session, play 45 minutes or 90 minutes.”
Slot is convinced Liverpool need not worry that Isak will return to his peak at Anfield and, after often lamenting missed chances this season, feels their results would have been better had Isak been fit.
“It is 100 per cent sure fans will see the best of him next season and we are trying to make sure that we will see close to the best or the best of him this season. I am just as excited as the fans to have him back because I think it is fair to say that 90 per cent of our games, we’ve had more chances than the other team, so if we had one of the best strikers in the world playing for you then that would have usually, usually, meant that you would have had more points.”
