Arne Slot says he is yet to be concerned by Federico Chiesa’s ongoing fitness issues but admits the Italy international’s situation is “far from ideal”. The Liverpool boss, however, is expecting the forward to be ready for selection after the upcoming international break.
Chiesa has made just one start since his £12m move from Serie A giants Juventus in late August, featuring for 59 minutes of the 5-1 hammering of West Ham United in the Carabao Cup on September 25, which came after a stoppage-time cameo in the 3-1 Champions League victory over AC Milan the previous week.
Since then, Chiesa has only featured as an unused substitute for the 2-1 win at Wolves on September 28 and has been forced to sit out the last eight games as a result. That figure will rise when he is absent for Saturday’s visit from Aston Villa before the international break.
And Slot accepts it is not a perfect situation for the club’s sole signing of the summer transfer window to be in ahead of a critically important period on the other side of the break.
“I would not use the word concern but it is far from ideal for him and us,” Slot said. “Because with the injury of Dioga (Jota) we have four attackers available, so this could have been a great moment for him to get more playing time.
It is difficult for a player who missed out on pre-season and playing pre-season games and training sessions. You have to give a player more time to get to the intensity levels.
It is a difficult balance to get him where we want but we are trying and he is trying everything he can to get to these levels.
“Once he is at that physical level we will benefit from having him. At this moment we expect him back during the international break and then he should be with us after the international break normally.”
Asked what he can use this time out from having guided Feyenoord to the Eredivise title in the 22/23 campaign, Slot, whose side top both the Premier League and Champions League added: “That is a difficult one because that was a very strange season.
That was the season there was a World Cup [mid-season] so after that game against Excelsior [when we went top], we had seven or eight weeks off, a complete pre-season again.
“And in that moment that helped that team a lot because we had brought in 15 new players during the summer. Here it is a completely different situation – we only brought one new player in who hasn’t been available that much.
In general, I think it is difficult to take things from another competition, other players, and bring that to this current situation.
The Eredivisie is a good league, but there are only three title contenders, three teams that can normally take points from each other, the rest, maybe one or two others, are all easy wins and the Premier League is completely different to that.
“We have six, seven, eight teams, maybe nine, that can play top four. Where in the Eredivisie only three teams can play the top three. The way I work has nothing to do with us winning the league, I work in the same way as I did with the Under-14s in my first year when I was a manager and when I did the Under-21, Feyenoord and now.
“I do the same, I don’t change my way of working. Sometimes you change how you handle certain individuals because people are not always the same but the idea, our training sessions, the way of playing hasn’t changed a lot in seven, eight, nine or 10th year.”
