This is what's really behind Alexander Isak's Liverpool slump: The problem that began in February, the alarms AI is raising about him and why Arne Slot's explanation for Swede's slow start just doesn't add up

Alexander Isak last played at his best in February. Even his goal in March during Newcastle’s Carabao Cup final win over Liverpool felt like a cameo from a star already starting to write himself out of the script. 

For the most expensive player in British history, eight months is a long time to look either half-fit or, worse still, half-interested, as he did in those final, fractious months on Tyneside.

Since then, Isak has fallen into the pit he now inhabits. It may be cushioned by banknotes, but he looks all the poorer for having forced his dream move to Liverpool. Right now, he seems trapped in a nightmare.

During those closing days at Newcastle, and this extends into last season, coaches felt distance where once there was intimacy and eagerness.

‘We can’t get near him,’ said one insider, and this was before they literally couldn’t, once he went on strike.

Isak had turned his back on the tutelage that helped make him so great. And he was great. Call it disrespectful, maybe, but what it feels more like now is career vandalism. 

He thought he was the finished article, able to dial in the code to his powers at a later date and different location. But lost amid the haze of his murky summer was form and fitness. They are still on the missing list.

From Merseyside to Stockholm, via Istanbul and Croydon, Isak has not functioned as he should. The code is scrambled and the numbers do not add up, certainly not to £125million.

He has scored one goal across nine games for Liverpool and Sweden since his move to Anfield on September 1. Just as alarming is his failure to record a shot on target in the Premier League. He is not even getting chances to miss.

Last season, Jacob Murphy created eight of his 23 Premier League goals. As one online wit remarked: ‘Liverpool bought the iPhone but not the charger.’ There is truth in that - he and Murphy shared an uncanny telepathy - but Isak is a forward capable of making his own mischief. Why, then, are defences so untroubled when up against him?

Liverpool’s view - part-logic, part-hope - is that Isak has only just finished what was his pre-season. It is unfortunate, they say, that he was judged in competitive matches in that time. Arne Slot’s breezy stance when asked about Isak is that there is nothing to see, that all will be fine.

But that is the issue - there has been nothing to see, save for one goal against Southampton in the League Cup. The ‘pre-season’ argument would carry more weight had Isak been injured, but he has trained every day since the start of July, albeit alone through August, including back at his old club Real Sociedad's facilities at one stage.

Those who know him best insisted he would not be bothered in the slightest by the noise that ran parallel to the silence of his strike. He was accused of being a traitor, but Isak was single-minded enough, they said, to believe he was being true to himself. He got what he wanted.

But watching him in recent weeks is to see a subdued, almost doubtful, version of himself. The Kop are yet to sing his name in unison, mostly because they don’t yet know what they’re singing about.

At Newcastle, even when rusty he played with a swagger, of one who knew the opposition were mere extras in his show. At his best, that is Isak - an entertainer with the gait of a marathon runner, the speed of a sprinter and precision of an archer. For club and country of late, he has looked more like a relay runner waiting for the baton.

Is it not that the efforts to extract himself from Newcastle - and this goes back to the spring - have taken a mental toll as much as physical? He looked regretful when, during the international break, he was asked if he had spoken to Eddie Howe since his exit. ‘No,’ he replied.

To torch so many bridges - with Howe, Jason Tindall, Graeme Jones and all of the coaches who nurtured him, not to mention an entire fanbase - cannot leave any individual feeling good about themselves.

On the penultimate weekend of last season, when Newcastle needed a win at Arsenal to all but confirm Champions League qualification, club insiders were saddened as much as disappointed when Isak, in London with the squad, said he was not fit enough to play on the morning of the game, which they went on to lose 1-0.

Sources say, by then, he would have been well aware of Liverpool’s interest. In reality, that day marked the end of his meaningful time at Newcastle, even though performances had long since tailed off.

It should not be underestimated how big an impact the long and painful nature of his Newcastle withdrawal has had on his rhythm, instinct and belief. Slot disagrees and turns it all back on fitness.

‘The outside world can, from now on, say we have the one we signed,’ said the Liverpool boss ahead of Sunday’s game against Manchester United, attempting to draw a line under all that has gone before.

‘The first five or six weeks, of course we had the player we signed, but he was not completely ready yet, he was just getting fitter and fitter, but he just had to do this in a Premier League game. This is not normal for a player.

‘We have signed him for six years, so if we want him somewhere, we have to go through this period of playing him where ideally you would use him earlier in a friendly match, rather than a Premier League game or a Champions League game.

‘But there is no time in the middle of the season for a friendly match, so we had to build him up playing Premier League matches, and I think you have to be on top of your game to make a difference at this level.

'You can play at this level if you are maybe 80 or 90 or 95 per cent, but if you want to make a difference at the highest level of football, because that is what the Premier League is, then you need to be 100 per cent. I think I can safely say he is 100 per cent now.’

It is a bold declaration by Slot and has been interpreted as a warning for Manchester United, a team who have kept him quieter than most with one goal in eight appearances against them.

But it should be as much a warning for Isak: there are no excuses now.

Liverpool have given him all they can during the past six weeks, by way of physical and psychologically support. They have been understanding in the extreme, all carrot, no stick.

Slot gets a dossier every morning from head of performance Ruben Peeters and head of medicine Jonathan Power. Between the two departments, they have put Isak on a specialist plan to achieve full fitness.

It started with half training sessions and him missing parts of the schedule to allow for rest. Slot’s words this week feel like the expiry of the softly-softly approach. Because the hard truth is, Isak’s under-performance - regardless of any mitigation - has cost Liverpool dearly during back-to-back-to-back defeats at Crystal Palace, Galatasaray and Chelsea to enter this international break.

At Selhurst Park, even though Liverpool were 1-0 down entering the final six minutes of normal time, an AI tool used by staff alerted them to the likelihood of Isak suffering an injury, and so he was substituted. One measure of the bespoke algorithm, designed by STATSport, is step balance - and Isak was out of step, both literally and metaphorically.

A few days later in Istanbul he had just four touches during half an hour of a 1-0 defeat by Galatasaray. Then, at Stamford Bridge, there were just two touches in the penalty area during 74 minutes of a 2-1 loss. There were no dribbles, his trademark, in any of those games.

It may take time for partnerships to form - he and Mo Salah are playing like the strangers they are - but more was expected in terms of individual moments of inspiration. See his replacement at Newcastle, Nick Woltemade, who has scored four from five starts despite similar concerns over readiness. He is also playing in the Premier League for the first time, unlike Isak.

When the Swede signed for Liverpool, captain Virgil van Dijk told him that this was not the end of his journey, joining the Premier League champions, but merely the start, and that the hard work began now.

If Slot is right, Isak has sweated those hard yards and now it is time for the stardust. Blind Manchester United tomorrow, and maybe then Anfield will have reason to sing his name.