Arne Slot offers telling reason for Federico Chiesa’s lack of Liverpool minutes

Arne Slot has admitted Federico Chiesa’s chances of playing for Liverpool have been impacted by the Reds’ hectic schedule this season.

With just 10 games remaining in the campaign, including Sunday’s Carabao Cup final at Wembley, chances are running out for Chiesa to make an impact this season. The Italian has struggled to get any game time since making the move from Juventus last summer, with just 10 appearances to his name so far.

Chiesa has been left on the bench for Liverpool’s last seven games, with his last appearance coming in the infamous 1-0 defeat to Plymouth in the FA Cup. Slot’s decision to turn to Cody Gakpo – who had only returned to training the previous day – from the bench against Paris Saint-Germain in midweek was perhaps the most damning indictment of the summer signing’s time at Anfield so far.

With just Sunday’s final and nine Premier League games to go now, it seems increasingly unlikely that Chiesa will get many more opportunities, if any, for the remainder of the season, with Slot admitting the packed schedule has not helped in bedding him in.

“That’s of course more difficult, because these players hardly train with the starters if you look at our schedule in the last three or four months,” Slot said in his press conference on Friday.

“So if we play for example on Saturday and then we play on Tuesday again, then on Sunday the ones that played on Saturday only do a recovery session, so they’re not on the pitch.

“And then it’s the day before the game and it’s maybe 10, 15 minutes of tactics, where it’s more walking football than playing football. So there’s hardly ever a moment when they can compete with each other.

“But the day after the game I’m always outside, my assistants have great exercises and the players always show themselves in these moments.

“So those are moments to show where you are. If you’ve improved, yes or no, and if you come closer to the players that are starting – and of course, when they come in [off the bench].

“I agree that for the ones that don’t start, it’s not an ideal world that we have so many games, that’s completely true.”

Liverpool.com says: The Chiesa signing just hasn’t worked, has it? There is of course the obvious Mohamed Salah factor to take into account, and there is just simply no way the Italian forces himself onto the right with the Egyptian in the sort of form that he has been this season.

But the fact that Slot turned to Gakpo against PSG, even when the Dutchman clearly wasn’t fully fit, probably tells you all you need to know about Chiesa’s current standing in the squad. He is firmly sixth-choice among the forwards, and considering Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez aren’t in great form, that is a worrying sign.

Considering how little Liverpool had to pay for him in the summer, it seemed like a no-brainer to sign Chiesa. If the Reds can make any sort of profit on him during the off-season though, they should seriously think about moving him on.