Thomas Frank strongly rejected Arne Slot\u2019s claim that Micky van de Ven was \u201creckless\u201d in the challenge that resulted in Alexander Isak suffering a broken leg.<\/p>\n
Isak had just scored his third goal for Liverpool to help secure a crucial 2\u20131 victory when the incident occurred. As the Swedish forward fired past Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, Van de Ven slid in from the side in an effort to block the shot. The collision led to Isak fracturing his fibula, an injury that required surgery and is expected to rule the \u00a3125 million forward out for at least a couple of months.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Liverpool\u2019s match against Wolves, Slot criticised Van de Ven\u2019s challenge, suggesting that such a tackle carried a high risk of causing serious injury. Frank, however, firmly disagreed with that assessment.<\/p>\n
He explained that Van de Ven was simply doing his job as a defender, reacting instinctively in a transitional moment to prevent a goal. According to Frank, sliding in to block the shot was a natural defensive action, and the severity of the outcome was down to unfortunate timing as Isak planted his foot. He insisted there was nothing reckless in the challenge and argued that a defender who failed to attempt such a block would not be fulfilling their role properly.<\/p>\n
Frank also revealed that Van de Ven and Isak had since spoken and resolved the matter between themselves.<\/p>\n
Despite the setback, Slot remained optimistic about Isak\u2019s impact on Liverpool\u2019s season. While acknowledging the forward will miss important matches across domestic and European competitions, he expressed confidence that Isak can still play a significant role once he returns.<\/p>\n
Slot noted that Isak\u2019s early months at the club had been difficult due to a lack of preseason and limited training time, making it hard for him to immediately show his best form. However, recent goals had shown he was rediscovering the level he displayed previously, making the injury particularly unfortunate at this stage of his progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thomas Frank strongly rejected Arne Slot\u2019s claim that Micky van de Ven was \u201creckless\u201d in the challenge that resulted in Alexander Isak suffering a broken leg. Isak had just scored his third goal for Liverpool to help secure a crucial 2\u20131 victory when the incident occurred. As the Swedish forward fired past Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":57005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/images_voltaxMediaLibrary_mmsport_si_01kd7x5zx7q2kj53v1zr.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57006,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57004\/revisions\/57006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}