Liverpool's £300m Gamble: Isak's Journey and Ekitike's Injury

Liverpool did not just refresh a title-winning squad in the summer of 2025. They detonated the transfer market.

Florian Wirtz arrived for £116m. Hugo Ekitike cost £69m. Then came the headline act: Alexander Isak, prised from St James’ Park to Anfield and anointed the most expensive player in British football history. This was not tinkering. This was a club betting heavily that a new attacking era would eclipse the one that had just delivered the Premier League.

It has not played out that cleanly.

A record fee, a broken rhythm

Isak’s first year in red never really started. He missed pre-season, then broke his leg. The numbers told the story: four goals in all competitions. For a 26-year-old signed to be the reference point of the attack, that return looked painfully thin.

Questions followed him into 2026-27. Was the fee too big? Was the pressure too much? Had Liverpool bought a player whose body would not let him dominate the way he did at Newcastle?

The noise grew, but something else happened: the goals finally returned. Isak has found the net three times in his last two Premier League games, hinting that the striker Liverpool thought they were getting might finally be walking out at Anfield.

The spark that seemed to vanish has flickered back into life. For now, Arne Slot’s successor Iraola does not have to agonise over who leads the line. The shirt is Isak’s, and he is starting to look like he deserves it.

Ekitike’s misfortune, not Isak’s luck

Ekitike, signed to add another dimension to the forward line, barely had a chance to show it. An Achilles injury in April cut him down and pushed his Liverpool story back to the turn of the calendar year.

That delay has inevitably sparked a question: has Isak been lucky? Has he been protected from the kind of fierce competition that might have seen him benched while he searched for form and fitness?

Jermaine Pennant does not buy that. Speaking to GOAL in association with NetBet Casino, the former Liverpool winger rejected the idea that Isak has simply benefited from circumstance.

“I wouldn't say fortunate because I think they would have found a way maybe to play them both,” Pennant said.

The timing of Ekitike’s injury collided with a dip from Cody Gakpo, and that, in Pennant’s eyes, opened up an intriguing tactical route.

“We know that Ekitike likes to drift out to the left, so it wouldn't have surprised me if at some point Isak would have started down the middle, Ekitike may have gone on to the left-hand side and come in on his right foot like Gakpo does and sometimes join up as two number nines.

“But they are two good players, great players and you can't have a player like that sitting on your bench. They would have made a way, I think, for them both to play at some point.”

The message is clear: when Ekitike returns, this is not a straight fight. It is a puzzle. And good coaches do not leave £69m solutions gathering dust.

Doubts from a Liverpool ‘God’

If Pennant sees a path for Isak and Ekitike together, one Liverpool legend has taken a colder view of the Swede’s situation.

Robbie Fowler, still known as ‘God’ on the red half of Merseyside, admitted to GOAL before the season that he worried about Isak’s ability to stay fit and live up to the fee.

He did not sugar-coat the stakes.

“Absolutely,” Fowler said when asked if Isak had to deliver this term to quiet talk of further reinforcements. “And that's the case with the managers as well. The manager [Arne Slot] obviously didn’t deliver in the second year, so people questioned that. And as we all know, if people start questioning things, then there’s only one way you go.”

Fowler’s point slices through the sentiment. Liverpool are in a phase where reputations, whether in the dugout or on the pitch, only stretch so far. Isak’s price tag does not protect him. It magnifies the scrutiny.

Glimpses of the striker Liverpool paid for

Isak has started to answer back where it counts. He scored against Nottingham Forest. He scored against Ipswich. The movement looked sharper, the confidence more natural, the finishing closer to what Newcastle fans had grown used to.

Europe, though, reminded everyone that this is still a work in progress. In Liverpool’s opening Champions League fixture of 2026-27, a 2-1 comeback win over Atletico Madrid at Anfield, Isak drew a blank again. The team found a way, but their record signing did not find the net.

Those are the nights Liverpool bought him for. Those are the stages where a £100m-plus striker is expected to decide games, not just appear in them.

Barcola and the next selection storm

If the forward line already looked crowded on paper, Liverpool added one more major piece. France international Bradley Barcola arrived for £123m, another huge swing in a market that punishes mistakes.

Barcola brings pace, direct running and a threat from wide that can tilt a game in seconds. He also brings a new layer to Iraola’s selection headache.

When Ekitike returns and Barcola fully settles, Liverpool will have Wirtz, Gakpo, Isak, Ekitike and Barcola all jostling for the most precious spaces in the team. Some will have to sit. Some will have to adapt. Some will simply not survive the cut.

For now, Isak has the shirt and the goals to back it up. But with more than £300m of attacking talent circling around him, the question is no longer whether Liverpool can find a way for them all to play.

The question is whether their record signing can stay far enough ahead of the pack that they do not feel compelled to find someone else.