Winning the Premier League title with four games to spare, Liverpool boss Arne Slot has had a brilliant first campaign in charge. But there are still fans who would have liked to see more of certain players.
Harvey Elliott was injured for a spell but has barely been used since, while Wataru Endo has not been put into a meaningful game from the start. Federico Chiesa, meanwhile, hasn’t even made the bench sometimes such is the level of depth in the Liverpool attack.
As a result, there are going to be lots of questions about the Italian’s future heading into the summer. Standing on four Premier League games so far this season, Chiesa will pick up a league winners’ medal even if he doesn’t make another appearance. But longer term, he might have a decision to make about what he wants from his career.
The Turkish outlet Aspor reports that Fenerbahce manager Jose Mourinho has instructed his club to make Chiesa its number one target ahead of the summer, spotting an opportunity to snap him up. And if he isn’t going to be used that much by Liverpool, then it might be something worth considering.
Asked earlier this month whether Chiesa has a challenging job competing with the likes of Mohamed Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai for minutes either on the wing of as a number 10, Slot said: “Yeah, that is my answer.
“They (Salah and Szoboszlai) have done well and they have never let the team or the fans or me or their teammates down. They have always shown up. The final wasn’t our best game but I cannot say they didn’t show up [even though] it was not our best game.
(Image: Photo by Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
“And for all the other games, I think no one can say that these players didn’t perform — Szoboszlai, Mo Salah and all the others. It is not to say that if you don’t play someone, you don’t trust them. I do, but probably I find the other ones a bit better otherwise I would make a different choice, or they fit better in the team.”
But Chiesa’s father, Enrico, has already insisted that his son is content on Merseyside. Even though he hasn’t played often, the 27-year-old is thought to be delighted at representing such a big club.
If his situation doesn’t improve in terms of minutes, though, the questions will only keep on coming. Slot has shown very little intent to play him so far, and there is a big enough period in which he has been fit where he clearly hasn’t done enough behind the scenes to convince his manager.
Liverpool.com says: Chiesa has a lot of talent but getting into the team at Anfield has proven difficult. Losing him cannot be ruled out completely given how little he has played, but he was always a relatively cheap gamble.
If he is happy to stick around and play a sporadic squad role then there should be no rushing him out of the door. Liverpool needs depth and it might just click for him in the future — he is young enough and good enough for that to be realistic.
