Arne Slot defiant over Federico Chiesa future as Liverpool boss explains what's next

Chiesa

For a manager who has been keen to get a look at some of his players on the fringes since becoming Premier League champions,

Arne Slot has continued to largely overlook the offerings of Federico Chiesa.

Rarely does a social media post about the Reds'

team news pass without plenty of debate around the omission of Chiesa and that was arguably never more prevalent than last week, when the Italian was left out of the squad entirely for the visit of Arsenal.

Slot made six changes for the recent trip to Chelsea but Chiesa still found his nose pressed up to the glass, watching on as an onlooker for 82 minutes before he was belatedly sent on to rescue a game the champions lost 3-1.

That's how it's generally been for the attacker since he traded Liverpool for Juventus in August of last year.

Only twice has Chiesa completed 90 minutes, with the Champions League dead rubber against PSV in January followed by the dismal FA Cup exit at Plymouth Argyle the following month.

Just 392 minutes across 13 appearances since his arrival paints the picture of a player who is very much down the pecking order for the Reds

while that much is no surprise given the wealth of options available to Slot, the troubling part for Chiesa is how little he's featured since the title was wrapped up last month.

In 180 minutes played since, he has featured for just eight and the decision to leave him out of the squad for the visit of Arsenal has been interpreted as a head coach who sees no use for the only signing of his time so far.

That might be harsh and Slot has argued that his omission speaks more to the embarrassment of riches he has in his forward department but Jota and Nunez have just 11 Premier League goals between them this term

Despite being overlooked, Slot has doubled down on his insistence that Chiesa's future does not lie away from Anfield, claiming that his use of the phrase "or another club"

Slot

“No, that was lost in translation or I didn't say it in the way I meant it,"

"What I meant was that he is good enough to play for us, or a club of our standards. That is what I meant. It was a very positive thing and I didn't mean he should go to another club.

“But we are having here three players that are, in my opinion, doing so well this season that there was no reason not to play them.

"And most of the time I had to pick one of them, I couldn't pick Lucho, Cody and Mo together.

“So sometimes Lucho and Cody were not even playing. So that is more the reason than it is about him."

Alarm bells could faintly be heard as far back as October when Slot spoke in Leipzig about the versatile frontman essentially struggling to handle the intensity of the training sessions.

At the time, there seemed little need to rush the summer signing into anything that might have been too strenuous given he had no pre-season to call his own while Juve negotiated his exit

With Mohamed Salah in some of the best form of his career, Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo enjoying fruitful periods

But as we near the end of his first year on Merseyside, at no point has Chiesa threatened to move beyond his station of sixth choice forward

Slot, however, is firm in his belief that Chiesa won't be part of an end-of-term exodus at Anfield

Slot said

"Does he have a future here? Yes, definitely he has, yes," Slot says. "Definitely. I think everyone playing for us over here has a future over here.

"Next season, if he comes back completely fit, which he has hardly been for the first half-season but then afterwards he became fitter and fitter.

"The next steps should have been playing time, which I couldn't give him. But I can give him playing time in pre-season, so he can build himself up and then go even further.

"But that was also one of the things, if you do so well - and it was the same with Konate and Virgil - some people say maybe you should rest one or two once in a while.

"I know for sure the chance of winning when I play them both is particularly high.

“So why would I take the risk of rotating? Which I did against Plymouth and PSV and at some other moments. But yeah, pre-season gives them the chance to show themselves again."