Arne Slot has voiced that he isn’t worried about Federico Chiesa’s persistent fitness struggles, though he concedes the Italian star’s circumstances are “far from ideal”.
The Liverpool head coach remains optimistic, however, that the ace will join the squad post-international break. Chiesa has scarcely featured, only making one start for a 59-minute run during the 5-1 thrashing of West Ham in the Carabao Cup on the heels of a brief stint in Liverpool’s 3-1 Champions League triumph against AC Milan.
Following his swoop from Juventus in late August, his game time was cut short due to no pre-season, and he has missed out on the Reds’ action since – soon to miss an outing with Aston Villa on Saturday too. Slot admits it’s hardly ideal.
“I would not use the word concern but it is far from ideal for him and us,” Slot said. “Because with the injury of Dioga (Jota) we have four attackers available, so this could have been a great moment for him to get more playing time.
“It is difficult for a player who missed out on pre-season and playing pre-season games and training sessions. You have to give a player more time to get to the intensity levels. It is a difficult balance to get him where we want but we are trying and he is trying everything he can to get to these levels.
“Once he is at that physical level we will benefit from having him. At this moment we expect him back during the international break and then he should be with us after the international break normally.”
Asked about how his past experience of guiding Feyenoord to the Eredivisie title in the 22/23 campaign could inform his current approach, Slot, whose team leads both the Premier League and Champions League, said: “That is a difficult one because that was a very strange season.
“That was the season there was a World Cup [mid-season] so after that game against Excelsior [when we went top], we had seven or eight weeks off, a complete pre-season again.
“And in that moment that helped that team a lot because we had brought in 15 new players during the summer. Here it is a completely different situation – we only brought one new player in who hasn’t been available that much. In general, I think it is difficult to take things from another competition, other players, and bring that to this current situation.”
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