Empire of the Kop
·20 janvier 2025
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Yahoo sportsEmpire of the Kop
·20 janvier 2025
Arne Slot has opened up about the fitness of Federico Chiesa ahead of Liverpool’s Champions League clash against Lille on Tuesday night.
The Italian has endured a frustrating first half-season at Anfield since joining from Juventus five months ago, with injury problems and illness restricting him to a mere 171 minutes of game-time so far for the Reds.
Only once has he played more than 50% of a match for the club, and even with his team needing a goal against Brentford on Saturday, it wasn’t until the 87th minute that he was brought off the bench.
Slot spoke to the media on Monday afternoon ahead of tomorrow night’s fixture and admitted that Chiesa isn’t quite yet ready for a start-to-finish runout.
The Dutchman said (via Liverpool Echo): “Federico is not ready for a full 90 minutes yet but is closer. He hasn’t had many minutes yet so it’s not about him. It’s about me not playing him yet.”
The 46-year-old added that the Italian has been unfortunate to have a certain Mo Salah blocking his pathway into the starting XI, and to have been deprived of a proper pre-season due to his inactivity at Juventus before the transfer to Merseyside.
(Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
Slot outlined: “Diogo had a normal pre-season but was with the Euros. Federico didn’t. A few times Federico was unlucky and then we also saw how tough it is.
“Diogo is a great example. If a player has been out for a while, that load of 60-90 minutes you need to be careful, especially as there is no winter break. It makes it hard if a player is injured to bring them back.
“Some players are clearly starters so they can just come straight but for Federico, he has Mo Salah in front of him so he doesn’t have that status. It makes it hard for us to build him up but I am happy he had 45 minutes against Accrington, and he was part of a team that scored two goals on Saturday too.”
It seemed perplexing on Saturday as to why Slot waited so long to deploy Chiesa when Liverpool were desperately seeking a breakthrough against Brentford, but the context that the Dutchman provided today goes some way to explaining it.
The 46-year-old was vindicated for holding his nerve with the Italian after fellow substitute Darwin Nunez struck twice in stoppage time, and Ibrahima Konate’s admission that he’s been playing through the pain barrier might also have fed into the head coach’s thinking in terms of squad management.
It’s also fair to state that even a fully fit Chiesa mightn’t be a regular starter for the Reds due to Salah’s exceptional form this season, although it goes without saying that the 27-year-old would still have racked up far more minutes by now had it not been for his fitness troubles.
Slot is clearly adopting a strategy of ‘slow and steady wins the race’ when it comes to the Italy forward, something he can afford to do with such an abundance of riches in attack, even despite the absence of Diogo Jota for the next few weeks.
Hopefully we’ll see Liverpool’s number 14 steadily increasing his number of minutes on the pitch in our upcoming fixtures before he’s eventually ready for a full match. Having recently gotten off the mark with his goal against Accrington Stanley, he’ll be chomping at the bit to build on that at the earliest opportunity.