Personally I think Ekitike is a much much better fit for the team.
So far he has done better, also because he came in earlier, was fit and is technically a high quality player, he can link and connect with other players. He has his weaker aspects like they all do. But the club made these moves, aside of the Jota tragedy.
There’s a much better player in Isak than what we saw so far, he proved it in this league playing for a high intense Newcastle side.
Things evolve and change, for better or worse.
Ekitike is ahead of him so far, but he cannot start every game. So you play with Isak’s minutes, sometimes off the bench, sometimes starting, sometimes having both, depending on us and what the game needs.
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What’s a high intense team?
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Newcastle’s pressure.
Not the most consistent side over the last years, but when they’re on it, they can bring proper intensity in their pressure from the front without the ball.
Which we felt on our skin a few times (and our opponents even more times in last years), namely the League Cup last season.
I did wonder though this summer how would our press look like with all the moves (includes keeping Salah) we’ve made.
They just keep someone in central midfield. There’s not much more to it than that.
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I’m just going on what Slot said. The medical analysis is that he needs matches to get up to full power.
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It’s a tricky one. One the one hand we need a bit of form and on the other find a combination/set-up that works… I guess you could argue for a big change or no change - depending on if you want to build form or try another set-up…
Ugh… that would be the best receipt to destroy Ekitike’s current confidence and form, and it wouldn’t be the best receipt in order to get something from this game. Slot started the job against Forest as you said, but it was wrong as we know now, so hopefully he’ll see sense and play the one striker we have at the moment who is the most likely to put the ball in the net, and not the player who is consistently and hopelessly out of form, and bereft of confidence.
Isak needs a lot of training imo, and why not, a few games with the reserves, where he can bang in a few goals and get back up to 100%, physically and mentally.
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I don’t know why we are specifically pandering to the shortfalls Isak brought to the club… Without him in the line-up, we surely had enough firepower about us to score enough goals in a game, to take full points from these games.
There seems to be a clamour from AS and the media, to get him instilled within the team at the speed of light, immaterial of how much disruption it would bring to our playing pattern.
If we knew at the outset he was far from physically fit… then why oh why, didn’t AS, or anyone from the background staff, turn round and say… " you know what, as long as we get this guy up to speed for the second phase of the CL, let’s go with what players we have, and dangle him into proceeding slowly but surely.."
Instead of attempting to commingle 4 new players that were already fit and ready to go, including the scoring machine that is Hugo, we instead, with Isak, attempted to fit 5 into the team, knowing full well he was miles off being at the required level.
Is it any wonder, the players are confused by the way this season is unfolding in such a disjointed fashion
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No one is questioning the reality that he’ll need some games to get sharp. What is being questioned is which minutes Slot is choosing to give him and at what cost. And that is both cost to the team but also to Isak as well
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I think the calculus on Gomez has changed since we missed out on Guehi at the last second, and Leoni got injured for the season.
Now Gomez seems to be a real break glass in emergency sort of option, rather than a proper rotation option. In other words, he is being held back from playing, with whatever fitness he possesses, to instead be used in a break glass emergency in case another central defender goes down. Gomez is the current, flawed, insurance policy, until we can boost the central defensive depth hopefully in January.
Slot appears to therefore not be willing to use Gomez as a rotational right back, just in case he breaks down, and he might, and then we are really struggling with any kind of back up in central defence.
That’s what it looks like to me.
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My source says same team, with Dom and Curtis switching, and Hugo for Isak.
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Just to be clear, I would be starting Ekitike, because I’m viewing it from the outside and Hugo looks sharper to me.
However, Slot said that his discussions with the medical team were that Isak now needs game time to get him ready.
My point is Slot has taken the hit to play him against Forest, at some cost. It feels like having done that, we should finish the bloody job. Don’t reset that dial now.
It’s a non-sequitr though because no one is questioning the importance of getting him minutes. It’s about what is the appropriate way to get him those minutes. It is also not something the begins with the Forest game, but goes back to the Palace game in September.
I don’t think it is a non-sequitur at all. I know people aren’t denying he needs the minutes, but he can’t be simultaneously dropped and play.
He started against Forest, was totally anonymous, and while I don’t think he was the reason we lost, he didn’t help. Slot explained afterwards that the medical science has told him that he needs to play games to build his fitness.
If he he doesn’t play tonight, there will be part of me thinking ‘For fucks sake Arne. You took the hit to get him on the pitch against Forest, and paid the price. What was the point?’
What the medical team says is one of a few aspects that a coach takes into consideration when he selects his teams. That’s surely not the one and only reason why he started him.
There is no way we will or should push Isak starting a few games in a row in order to get him fit, even if it’s detrimental to the team. We don’t even know when things will click for him, also because physical sharpness is again, only one aspect.
We can use Isak in different ways in order for him to get there, be it 90, 60, 45, 30, 15 or whatever amount of minutes.
Team always comes first and yes, sometimes you do make decisions that are not “perfect” on paper. But I thought there was more than one reason why Ekitike would’ve made more sense ahead of Isak against Forest.
That doesn’t mean he should start again tonight and/or at the weekend.
We’re losing games like crazy, that’s a lot more worrying than Isak’s physical state at the moment.
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That isn’t the same team then 
In another world Isak gets 60 mins against Forest, scores a goal, Ekitike comes in for him, a bit fired up to have not started as he has been playing well, and Hugo adds another goal in a Liverpool victory. And then Slot has two strikers coming to the boil nicely.
It didn’t work out like that, but presumably that was the plan. Since Isak laid an egg it’s now easy to say it was a mistake to start him, but Slot, reasonably, tried to give an opportunity for Isak to get up to speed as when he does, he will be a real asset for the team.
What would I do today?
I would probably play both Isak and Ekitike, if not in a two up top, because that’s not what Slot is doing, then Hugo from the left and Isak through the middle. Gakpo makes way to make this happen.
If Slot intends to share the minutes between them, fair enough, regardless of who starts. At that point it is probably adding a new dynamic that doesn’t help us though, because all of a sudden - whichever striker it is - they have to produce the goods in reduced minutes as a negative narrative about the current Liverpool side continues to build.
The world isn’t ideal so that’s just imagination.
The team didn’t play well and Isak didn’t play well. He never looked like scoring.
Because of our issues at RB and Wirtz being out, we played our #10 at RB, which meant Jones in, which meant a difference in shape without a #10, which meant Isak was central on his own and the only positive stuff we did was down the sides.
Ekitike against Forest would’ve made more sense, because he can connect the attack better. Slot tried differently and it’s partly why we lost that game.
We don’t have to force it with Isak, because we have a lot of games coming up. He will get his minutes in order to get there. You get some, you do your best to merit more next time.
This is not pre-season, we’ve lost a ton amount of points lately. That is the priority, not forcing individual cases. If we go down that route, then that’s serious dancing on thin ice and playing with your job at stake.
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