Isak suffers a groin injury and extends difficult start to Liverpool career after record transfer for Great Britain

Alexander Isak’s disappointing start to his Liverpool career suffered another setback when he suffered a groin injury during the Champions League victory over Eintracht Frankfurt.

The Swedish striker, signed from Newcastle for a British record fee of 125 million pounds ($170 million) at the end of the summer transfer window, was withdrawn at half-time of the 5-1 win on Wednesday.

It was the second injury of the evening for Liverpool, with right back Jeremy Frimpong having to leave the field halfway through the first half due to a hamstring problem.

Isak has built up his match sharpness in recent weeks, having spent pre-season training away from Newcastle’s main squad as he made his case for a move to Liverpool. He scored just one goal in eight games in all competitions for his new club.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot said last week that Isak can only now be fairly assessed given the player’s turbulent pre-season.

“Let’s hope it’s not too bad, but he had to come off because he felt his groin,” said Slot. «A lot of people wanted me to play him more and we had to find the balance. Unfortunately, that balance didn’t work perfectly for us today. But let’s hope for the best.»

Slot spoke about the difficulty in managing Isak’s playing time over the past month, saying the fact the forward made two appearances for Sweden in the recent international window reinforced the belief he was ready to string starts together.

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“When he joined the club, he had hardly trained,” says the Dutchman. “So you bring him forward step by step, and then you feel like there has to be a point where he can play twice a week, and the first time we try – he did it with Sweden too – he has to go.

“Normally you try to prepare players for football once a week, but if you are Liverpool you play every three days or normally three times in eight days, but we have been unlucky this season, we have to play three times in seven days.

«We tried to prepare him for that, we were very careful and he was perfectly fit when he came back from the national team for the (Manchester) United match on Sunday. We thought he was well prepared for that, but the margins at the top are small.»

Frimpong has also endured a stop-start campaign in his first season at Liverpool after joining from Bayer Leverkusen.

Slot said the Dutch international would be out for a “couple of weeks”.

Published on October 23, 2025