On Sunday afternoon, Alexander Isak will sit on the bench at Burnley’s Turf Moor. Perhaps he will be introduced in the second half, playing 20 or 30 minutes of football for his new club, Liverpool.
The main thing is that Liverpool prevailed in their summer-stretching bid to sign Newcastle United’s talisman, completing the highly-charged transfer on deadline day for a British-record £125m fee, not long after the Reds had broken the previous record when signing Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen for £116m.
Liverpool’s summer spending spree was conducted with the view from the FSG offices that it would be something of a one-off, a remarkable statement of strength that would secure Anfield’s future for many years to come.
And though some felt the deal was somewhat unnecessary after Hugo Ekitike joined from Eintracht Frankfurt earlier in the summer, it was absolutely right that Liverpool pushed hard to land the signature of one of Europe’s most dangerous forwards.
How Isak compares to Premier League strikers
Liverpool spent more this summer than any team had spent before across a single transfer window, and now Arne Slot’s side are expected to deliver: they must defend their Premier League title; they must battle against the continent’s finest for a seventh Champions League triumph.
Isak will help in the pursuit of all that. The 25-year-old scored 27 times for Newcastle last season and has emerged over the past few years as one of the best strikers in world football, so intelligent and influential and clinical in front of goal.
Mohamed Salah is known for his success in the final third, but Isak has actually been scoring at a more prolific rate since joining Newcastle from Real Sociedad in 2022, and the overload of creative quality at Slot’s disposal suggests the Swede will only go from strength to strength on Merseyside.
Erling Haaland
100
88 (0.88)
Mohamed Salah
111
67 (0.60)
Alexander Isak
86
54 (0.63)
Ollie Watkins
115
50 (0.43)
Chris Wood
95
39 (0.41)
Bryan Mbeumo
101
39 (0.39)
However, as already suggested, there are some who maybe feel that a record-breaking bid for Isak was superfluous, especially with Slot already having an Isak-esque talent in the ranks.
Liverpool already sold an Isak-esque talent
Sadio Mane was considered an irreplaceable part of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, and he was, but FSG hit the jackpot in signing a positional successor in Luis Diaz, who proved instrumental in winning a horde of silverware across his three-and-a-half years at the club.
A left-sided forward by trade, Diaz was regarded as a “magical” player by the likes of Liverpool reporter Matt Addison, not quite hitting the same clinical heights as Mane before him but still contributing crucially throughout his spell at the club.
And last year was his best of the bunch, posting 17 goals and eight assists across the campaign. While consistent performances as a striker were bound to raise his output, Diaz still played the role extremely well, never goal-hanging and instead adding a dimension to Liverpool’s build-up play and altogether widening the scope for the likes of Salah and Cody Gakpo, who both enjoyed terrific campaigns in front of goal.
Long regarded as one of the most electric and direct wingers in the Premier League, Slot opted to refashion Diaz into a centre-forward last season, with Darwin Nunez toiling in front of goal.
And the results reinforced that decision, just one of a myriad of tactical enforcements that have established Slot as a Premier League champion and “one of the best coaches” in the world, as remarked by analyst Joe Baker.
Isak arrives at Liverpool as an upgrade in regard to being a centre-forward, but Diaz offered something very distinctive, a blend of sharp-paced athleticism and nifty tricks on the ball, all translatable to an unnatural berth at number nine.
After all, Diaz ranked among the top 3% of positional peers in the Premier League last season for non-penalty goals scored per 90, statistics courtesy of data-led platform FBref.
This much-improved focus in the final third, combined with a dynamic approach to the physical side of the game, led FBref to liken Diaz to Newcastle’s Isak, who had been named by pundit Ally McCoist as being “the best all-round centre-forward” in England.
Manchester City’s Erling Haaland might have more of a predatory instinct in front of goal, but you can see why Liverpool invested such an effort into signing Isak, who brings more to the table, who will carry something of Diaz’s style of play through the campaign.
Diaz was an immense and perhaps even underrated member of a multi-title-winning Liverpool side, but he appeared to have been pining for a transfer, first looking toward Barcelona and then Manchester City and the Saudi Pro League too, before eventually completing a move to Bayern Munich, where he is thriving.
It’s the news that Pep Guardiola’s side had come close to signing him that perhaps rankles some within the Reds fanbase, with Liverpool proposing to the Sky Blues a scenario in which City signed the Colombia international and Liverpool got Julian Alvarez in return upon realising that Diaz wanted to join their domestic rivals.
Diaz’s desire to leave Liverpool and join a domestic rival underscores a further similarity between his case and that of Slot’s new focal frontman, and let’s just be grateful that he was at least willing to remain at the club and continue to ply dutifully toward the outfit’s goals.
The versatile forward, in any case, served Liverpool extremely well, and though he carried some similarities to Isak, there’s no question that Liverpool fans and those involved at the club will consider the arrival of the Sweden star a significant upgrade and a fantastic deal, even though Isak’s signature came at such a premium.
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