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 the touchline, Slot was ecstatic after seeing Isak combine with Florian Wirtz, who got his first Premier League 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. Either way, two players that Slot subbed on failed to finish the game.
In the end, Hugo Ekitike’s goal ensured Liverpool held on to yet another crucial victory but they almost blew it against the nine men of Tottenham, who had both Xavi Simons and Cristian Romero sent off.
“A masterclass on how not to manage the final 10 minutes” was the verdict of Jamie Redknapp on Sky Sports. Slot himself admitted that it was far from ideal.
“It’s unbelievable if you play against nine men that I would not be surprised if for the nine minutes of added time, they had the ball for eight and a half. That is not what you expect and maybe that tells you where we are in this season,” Slot told BBC Match of the Day.
“We need a few more wins to get a bit more comfortable with setbacks. The thing that keeps in your mind is the last 10 minutes, but there was a lot more to like in the first 80 to 90 minutes.”
