Arne Slot brilliantly bats off question about Alexander Isak during Sky Sports interview | OneFootball

Arne Slot knew the inevitable question about Alexander Isak was coming, and he had his answer ready!

Much of the discussion ahead of tonight’s match between Newcastle and Liverpool was centred around the Swedish striker, who’s made his desire to leave the former for the latter unmistakably clear and wasn’t involved in this fixture.

However, the contest at St James’ Park was so eventful that the 25-year-old ended up being nudged down the pecking order of discussion by Anthony Gordon’s red card, Hugo Ekitike scoring for the third game in a row and Rio Ngumoha netting an incredible 100th-minute winner on his Premier League debut.

Slot ignores Isak question and praises Ekitike instead

Slot spoke to Sky Sports after the dramatic victory on Tyneside and, unsurprisingly, he was asked if he expects ‘conversations’ between the two clubs about Isak in the final week of the transfer window.

The Liverpool head coach batted off the question by heaping praise on the Reds’ centre-forward instead, saying: “I think the story should be about Hugo Ekitike for scoring another goal for us. It wouldn’t be fair for me to talk about anything else.

“He’s had three games with us now and scored three goals. He’s impacted the games he’s played, as have my other attackers. This is not the place to talk about anything else tonight, in my opinion, but I can understand you asking.”

(Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)

Is Ekitike being underappreciated amid his brilliant start at Liverpool?

This was the perfect response from Slot – forget about getting dragged into the soap opera over Isak and adjust the spotlight to Ekitike instead.

It seems strange that a £69m striker who scores in each of his first three games for Liverpool has so little discussion surrounding him, but the Frenchman has quietly been making a brilliant start to life at Anfield.

Indeed, even his own head coach hadn’t been expecting him to score just 20 seconds after half-time tonight, with the 46-year-old missing the goal as he hadn’t yet returned to the dugout!

Amid all the talk over Isak, it shouldn’t be ignored that Ekitike has been sensational for the Reds so far and is already going quite a way to repaying his transfer fee.

If (and it’s a massive if) Liverpool do sign Newcastle’s Swedish striker in the next seven days, it might pose a dilemma as to how he and the French forward fit into the same starting line-up, because it’d be wrong to see the 23-year-old being dropped when he’s in such flying form.