Alexander Isak gives Liverpool huge lift as change to pre-season plans can wait

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With Alexander Isak returning to Liverpool first-team training today (Thursday), Paul Gorst assesses the £125m striker's Anfield situationAfter speaking so enthusiastically about Alexander Isak before the international break, Arne Slot provided the most significant fitness update in months concerning his £125m striker on Wednesday.Isak is back in team training today (Thursday) and he will understandably be determined to make up for lost time in his Liverpool career.The most expensive player in British football history hasn't kicked a ball since Micky van de Ven broke his leg during the 2-1 win at Tottenham Hotspur on December 20.It was cruel luck on Isak, who opened the scoring with what was his last kick of a ball for the Reds. All the latest news and analysis from Anfield on the Liverpool Echo's dedicated LFC Facebook pageIf Liverpool's domestic season has largely been one to forget so far, Isak's own personal campaign has mirrored it.The well-documented lack of pre-season training programme, owing to his acrimonious departure from Newcastle, meant he was playing catch up when he joined the Reds on September 1.Liverpool had already played three Premier League games without Isak and an immediate international break that followed denied him the chance to get his feet under the table at the AXA Training Centre straight away.Subsequent breaks in October and November also did little for a player desperate to gain some momentum before Van de Ven's late challenge the following month took the wheels off the club-record signing's season entirely.Talk of organising behind-closed-doors friendlies and appearing in under-21s fixtures have been floated in an effort to explore the best way of getting Isak as close to 100% as possible at this juncture of the campaign.But just seeing him back in team training will provide the club with a lift ahead of a critical few days that sees two quarter-finals in the FA Cup and Champions League, against Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain respectively."Arne Slot was right to temper expectations, absolutely," Liverpool legend John Barnes tells the ECHO on Isak's impending comeback.

Having not played for such a long time, and because it hasn't really gone that well for him so far this season, why are we going to put him under that pressure to come into a PSG game?"If we don't do well, if he doesn't play well, that's a lot of pressure. In terms of what (Hugo) Ekitike and players like that are doing, I don't think it's necessary to rush him back.

So, yeah, I would be very surprised if he's rushed back for that game."It's unclear if Saturday's lunchtime kick-off at the Etihad will come too soon for Isak given he will only have had a handful of sessions under his belt alongside his colleagues this week after their return from international duty.But even the prospect of having the No.9 theoretically available off the bench is quite the option for Slot, given that cover for Hugo Ekitike down the middle has been virtually non-existent since the Sweden international suffered his leg break."I think the pre-season programme is integral," Robbie Fowler, another Reds legend, tells the ECHO. "I know he broke his leg but just before that it looked like he was maybe getting back into some sort of form."Obviously, missing pre-season was critical in terms of him not being at his best and I think he is a player who probably thrives off being 100% fit, playing consistently."So I am certainly not getting my hopes up just yet and I hope this doesn't come across as me having a go at him because I am sure he is here, fit and firing but the club will look after him to get him ready for next season."Because I think that is probably more important, in the grand scheme of things, for where we need to be where and where we all think he should be, because there's going to be a player who is leaving at the end of this season (Mohamed Salah) that we are all going miss hugely in terms of his goals and his numbers."Sweden's qualification to the World Cup this summer will inevitably have a knock-on effect for Liverpool's hopes of using their pre-season schedule to ensure Isak hits the ground running next season.Players typically receive three weeks off in the summer, meaning the former Magpies star will miss a portion of the pre-season period.The Reds are currently slated to begin their United States tour on July 25 but domestic games will be organised before they depart for Nashville, where the trip starts against Sunderland at GEODIS Park.Sweden's group games against Tunisia, Netherlands and Japan will be played between June 14 and 25.After opening their campaign against Tunisia in Guadalupe's Monterrey Stadium, Isak and his international colleagues then have two matches in Texas, against the Dutch in Houston on June 20 and Arlington's Dallas Stadium five days later against Japan.For now, though, the fitness plans and the summer logistics can wait.Isak is finally closing in on his Liverpool return and with some huge matches still to come, he may yet even have a big part to play.