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Alexander Isak posted a picture of Liverpool hero Mohamed Salah celebrating in front of the traveling supporters at Turf Moor on Instagram as he was made to wait to make his Reds debut.
Swedish forward Isak played just 20 minutes midweek for his country and it was decided that he would be best served staying on Merseyside as Liverpool took on Burnley. In doing so, he should be able to put himself in contention to play a part when the Reds face Atletico Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday.
"As everybody knew, he didn't have any team training at Newcastle," Liverpool head coach Arne Slot told Sky Sports ahead of the game.
"He went to the national team and only played for 15 or 20 minutes. We think with a week where we play three games in seven days, this is the best lead-up for him to be available against Atletico Madrid."
Slot added it is "difficult" to say when Isak will be fully up to speed following his fitness issues. The 25-year-old was on strike at Newcastle United before he forced his move through and therefore hasn't had much in the way of a summer.
"What I can say is that in pre-season after one or two weeks, you play your first 45 to 60 minutes and you build that up gradually," Slot said.
"But that you do with proper training sessions during the week. Now we hardly have any proper training sessions with the team because we play three games in seven days.
"So where would he be? Second, third week of pre-season now I would say. So, hopefully able to play during the week [for] 45 minutes or more.
"But then, two days later we play Everton again, so it’s going to be interesting for performance staff, us to get the best out of him from the star but also keep him available until the end."
Isak could play for Liverpool for the first time this week, with Atletico Madrid in the Champions League followed by Everton in the Premier League. But he won't be playing at full throttle straight away.
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"Don’t expect him to be every single game 90 minutes on the pitch," the Dutchman added. "That’s definitely not going to happen for the next few weeks.
"He missed a proper pre-season. I think he missed three or four months of team sessions, so now we have to build him up gradually, with us playing so many games and hardly any training time.
That is going to be a challenge, but we have not just signed him for the upcoming two weeks, we have signed him for six years so this is what we have to keep in mind.
"What the fans have to keep in mind if I take him off in a certain moment or I only bring him in for a few moments. That is all for the fitness of the player."
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