Virgil van Dijk cut a delighted figure at the sight of Federico Chiesa at the AXA training centre on Thursday.
“Fede! You back?” the Dutchman inquired of the summer signing who confirmed as much.
There was even a little celebratory fist-pump just before the cameras cut away to Alisson Becker entering the building in the latest episode of ‘Inside Training’.
Arne Slot noted he’s been struggling to decide what to do with the Italy international given the games are coming thick and fast and Chiesa hasn’t really had a proper pre-season.
“What he needs is playing time and the problem is if you haven’t played for five or six months it is sometimes difficult for a manager to give him his first minutes, because you don’t exactly know what you can expect,” the Dutchman told reporters in his pre-Fulham presser.
“Yes, I see him on the training ground, but ideally you see him in a friendly during the week or you see him in an U21 game or something like this – but that is not the situation we have, we play so many games.”
The 26-year-old hasn’t been seen since a bench appearance in the 2-1 win over Wolves back in the end of September.
Since then, there has been a promising return to competitive action with a goalscoring performance with the U21s.
“If you only have training sessions, that is not the same as playing time. You need to have playing time to reach certain fitness levels. But if you are competing for the league and competing in the Champions League it’s not always easy to find these minutes, unless we are sometimes 4-0 or 5-0 up.”
