Liverpool's £300m Question: Can Isak Lead the Line?

Liverpool did not just refresh in the summer of 2025. They detonated the transfer market.

Florian Wirtz arrived for £116m. Hugo Ekitike followed for £69m. Then came the headline act: Alexander Isak, prised from St James’ Park to Anfield and installed as the most expensive player in British football. A title-winning squad was suddenly reupholstered with luxury.

It was supposed to be the next great Liverpool front line. It hasn’t worked out that cleanly.

A Record Fee, a Broken Rhythm

Wirtz never quite lit the touchpaper. The German playmaker, signed to thread passes through tight spaces and dominate the half-spaces, struggled to impose himself as expected.

Ekitike’s campaign fell apart in April with an Achilles injury.

Isak’s story hurt even more. No pre-season. Then a broken leg. By the time the dust settled on 2025-26, the 26-year-old had only four goals in all competitions to show for that record fee and all the fanfare.

For a striker bought to define an era, it was a meagre return.

The questions rolled into the new season. Was this a blip, or had Liverpool misread the moment? Was Isak the wrong fit, or simply unlucky?

Signs of Life

The early weeks of 2026-27 have at least given Liverpool something they badly needed from their No. 9: noise.

Isak has hit three goals in his last two Premier League games, a burst that has eased the scrutiny and given Arne Slot’s successor, Andoni Iraola, one less sleepless night. The conversation has shifted from “Should he start?” to “Is this the version Liverpool thought they were buying?”

The spark, long buried under rehab and rust, looks close to catching again.

Ekitike is due back around the turn of the year. That looming return throws up an obvious question: has Isak effectively been protected from real competition while he scrambled for form?

Jermaine Pennant, who knows the demands of Anfield from his own days on the wing, rejects that idea.

“They Would Have Found a Way”

Speaking to GOAL in association with NetBet Casino, Pennant dismissed the notion that Isak has been lucky.

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

The timing of Ekitike’s injury mattered. Cody Gakpo was struggling. Ekitike, who likes to pull into that left channel, would have given Iraola a very different puzzle.

“We know that Ekitike likes to drift out to the left,” Pennant explained. “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.”

That image is exactly what Liverpool thought they were buying: movement everywhere, two forwards interchanging, full-backs flying, chaos in the box.

“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.”

In other words, this was never meant to be a straight shootout. It was meant to be an overload.

“Absolutely” – Fowler’s Warning

Not everyone around Anfield has been so relaxed about the Isak equation.

Robbie Fowler, still “God” to the red half of Merseyside, admitted to GOAL before the season that he worried about the Swede’s fitness and his ability to justify the outlay.

For Fowler, this season is non-negotiable for Isak.

He framed it in stark terms: “Absolutely. 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.”

The message was clear. At a club of Liverpool’s size, patience is finite. When doubts take hold, they tend to spread quickly – from the dugout to the dressing room to the boardroom.

Isak is not just playing for goals. He is playing to close the door on conversations about yet another centre-forward.

Mixed European Signal, Domestic Hope

Domestically, there are encouraging signs. Isak has found the net against Nottingham Forest and Ipswich, the kind of fixtures where Liverpool’s great No. 9s have always filled their boots and built their confidence.

Europe, though, remains a different kind of test.

In Liverpool’s opening Champions League match of 2026-27, Isak drew a blank as the Reds had to come from behind to beat Atletico Madrid 2-1 at Anfield. The team showed character. The stadium did what it always does on European nights. The comeback fed the mythology.

But the striker signed to be the focal point of a new era did not get on the scoresheet.

For a player carrying that price tag, those details linger.

Barcola and the Coming Storm

As if the forward line was not already crowded with questions, Liverpool have pushed the envelope again.

France international Bradley Barcola has arrived for £123m, another enormous swing in the market. A winger by trade, Barcola brings pace, direct running and the kind of one-v-one threat that stretches defences and shifts entire game plans.

He also brings something else: a fresh selection headache for Iraola.

With Wirtz still searching for his true role, Ekitike on the mend, Gakpo fighting to regain form and Barcola now in the mix, the attacking jigsaw is getting more complicated by the week.

Right now, Isak has the shirt and, finally, a bit of rhythm. The goals against Forest and Ipswich have quietened the noise. The manager is not yet forced into brutal decisions.

That grace period will not last.

When Ekitike returns and Barcola settles, Liverpool’s forward line will look like what the club intended all along: expensive, explosive, unforgiving. At that point, the most costly striker in British football will either be leading the charge from the centre of it all – or he will become the most high-profile problem in a squad built to win everything.

Which version of Alexander Isak will Anfield be watching when the real battles of the season arrive?