What Chiesa did after scoring on Saturday makes his Champions League absence even more baffling | OneFootball

Federico Chiesa was a shock omission from the 21-player Liverpool squad which has flown out to Istanbul for the Champions League fixture against Galatasaray on Tuesday night.

The 27-year-old was excluded from Arne Slot’s original European roster prior to the league phase commencing, but was then drafted in after the ACL injury to Giovanni Leoni which has ruled him out for the next year.

However, despite training with the Reds in Kirkby on Monday morning, the Italy international wasn’t on the plane to Turkey a few hours later, with James Pearce indicating that it’s an entirely voluntary decision by the LFC head coach and not due to any fitness concerns.

(Photo by Tom Dulat/Getty Images)

Chiesa left out despite scoring on Saturday

Chiesa’s absence for tomorrow night’s match seems even more surprising after his intervention off the bench in the disappointing 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Liverpool’s number 14 placed Florian Wirtz in the 74th minute at Selhurst Park and netted a late equaliser for the Reds – and what he did immediately after that goal spoke volumes about him.

Instead of running towards the away end to celebrate what looked like rescuing a share of the spoils, he instantly grabbed the ball from the Eagles’ net and hared towards the centre circle to try and instigate a quick restart, sensing an opportunity for his team to go on and score again (see clip below).

Chiesa’s mentality after equalising spoke volumes

As we know, unfortunately it was Palace who delivered the last-gasp sting in the tail, but it still showed Chiesa’s elite mentality that his instant reaction to scoring was ‘Right, let’s go get another, I’m not content with a draw here’.

Even though Liverpool will have Hugo Ekitike for the Galatasaray showdown after he was suspended at the weekend, just imagine if we also had the Italy forward to come off the bench if – as has been the case with every Reds game this season – the match is on a knife edge in the final quarter-hour.

The 27-year-old must be wondering what more he must do in order to truly earn Slot’s faith, rather than having to make the most of cameo appearances off the bench, which admittedly have been more frequent than last season.

The contrast between Chiesa’s reaction to equalising on Saturday and his teammate’s ill-judged celebration after his late winner against Southampton last week is rather stark, and the LFC head coach will surely be asked to explain his snub of the Italian when he addresses the media tonight.

We can only hope that, by 10pm tomorrow, Liverpool won’t have cause to regret the absence of the immensely popular no.14 from the matchday squad.

You can watch the Liverpool squad prepare for Champions League action via our YouTube channel: