Former Liverpool striker Emile Heskey has said Alexander Isak has not been working hard enough off the ball, suggesting it has contributed to his paucity of goals.
The 26-year-old joined the Reds in the summer after scoring 23 league goals for Newcastle. He is still waiting for his first Premier League goal for Liverpool, having made four appearances.
What Heskey Said
Heskey, who scored 60 goals in 223 games for Liverpool, argued that a striker had to be the first defender, especially during a goal drought. He believes that the hard work off the ball consequently leads to more space in the opposition box, which can then be exploited.
“The thing for me is when you are not scoring goals, you need to still contribute to games,” he said, per Goal. “We’ve seen ups and downs with Mo Salah, who has scored so many goals.
“But when he does not score, he will want to be contributing more. My view was, the fundamental thing you can do is work hard, run around, and frustrate defenders. The defence starts at the front.
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“I was told this at Leicester, I was told this at Liverpool, because they had the best defender who played up front – Ian Rush. And he was just a menace to defenders. Fundamentally, you have to get that right, and everything else will follow.”
Heskey On Isak’s Fitness
Heskey then addressed the reason Isak has struggled to contribute wholly, admitting that the Sweden international was not physically fit.
Isak missed pre-season in his bid to force a move to Liverpool, as he went on strike. Arne Slot was intentional about easing him into proceedings while he gained fitness and recently said that Isak was now fully fit and could be judged by the merit of his performances.
In Heskey’s observation, the former Real Sociedad man is not yet at 100 per cent, urging him to improve his conditioning, as playing for a big club can be taxing.
“It looks like his fitness is not quite where it should be. It looks like he’s huffing and puffing a bit, so he just needs to get his fitness up a bit to put in the graft that is needed at the highest level.”
“It’s fascinating because at the highest level, you believe you get more time on the ball, so you need to do less work. But in fact, you have to do more work.
“When I was playing, Cesc Fabregas was the one who did the most running. Now, Arsenal were having 60-70% of the ball, so why was he doing the most running? Because he wanted it more than the others.”
