Alexander Isak was not included in Liverpool's squad for their dramatic 1-0 win over Burnley on Sunday following his deadline day transfer from Newcastle United.
A penalty from Mohamed Salah in second-half stoppage time maintained Liverpool's perfect start to the season and spared head coach Arne Slot from the awkward questions that he would have been asked had Liverpool drawn a blank in Isak's absence at Turf Moor.
Explaining his decision to omit Isak on Sunday, Slot said: "If you start a season when players have been off for three or four or five weeks, you give them a certain base. So you give them a lot of good sessions before they are able in the end of the week to play 45 minutes.
"We got him from Newcastle in a state where you could see his preseason is going to start now.
"So then he needs proper minutes of training before he has a certain base, let alone for him to play twice in three days. So that's what we do. We try to prepare players for in the beginning of this season once a week and then we try to do more and more before we go into the rhythm of two games a week so that they are ready for that schedule.
"Now Alex is far from ready for that schedule of three games in a week ...So now he will be able on either Wednesday or Saturday to play 45 as a minimum and maybe a little bit more. But if he plays 45 on Wednesday, don't expect him to play 45 or more on Saturday because his body is not prepared for that in our opinion."
Isak joined the Premier League champions in a British-record £125 million ($169.4m) deal having not played a competitive game since the final day of last season.
He was called up to represent the Sweden in the recent international break, however he was an unused substitute against Slovenia before playing just 18 minutes in a 2-0 defeat to Kosovo.
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Asked to assess Isak's fitness in a news conference on Friday, Slot said: "First of all I think the Swedish manager, Jon Dahl Tomasson, deserves a big, big, big compliment because he gets one of the best, maybe the best striker in the world in and needs to play two very important games for his country, but understands if he would play him twice for 90 minutes the player would have probably been injured for multiple weeks.
Slot instead chosen to stick with the same starting XI that beat Arsenal 1-0 last time out, with summer signing Hugo Ekitike leading the line.
Liverpool team:
Starting XI: Alisson, Szoboszlai, Konate, Van Dijk, Kerkez, Gravenberch, Mac Allister, Wirtz, Gakpo, Salah, Ekitike
Substitutes: Mamardashvili, Gomez, Endo, Bradley, Chiesa, Robertson, Frimping, Nyoni, Ngumoha
Burnley team:
Starting XI: Dubravka, Walker, Ekdal, Esteve, Hartman, Cullen, Ugochukwu, Tchaouna, Laurent, Anthony, Foster
Substitutes: Weiß, Worrall, Edwards, Humphreys, Florentino, Flemming, Pires, Broja, Hannibal