Arne Slot was largely pleased with what he saw from Federico Chiesa in his first Liverpool appearance for nearly three months, but he’s adamant that the Italian can still do a lot better.
Since joining from Juventus late in the summer, the 27-year-old has had something of a false start to his Anfield career, playing for just 78 minutes in September before ongoing fitness problems sidelined him for a full 12 weeks.
He made his long-awaited comeback last night in the Carabao Cup win over Southampton as a half-time substitute, and while there were some understandable signs of rustiness given his inactivity, there were also a few promising moments.
Speaking about Chiesa in his post-match press conference, Slot said [via liverpoolfc.com]: “I don’t know if we saw it the same, but I think what I saw is what you can expect. If a player is out for five or six months, you cannot expect [too much].
“I saw ups and downs. I saw some really good moments and I saw some moments where I felt like, ‘OK, you can do better than this.’ For me, that’s completely normal if a player has been out for so long and plays his first game in five or six months.
“I already said before that it makes it so difficult for me because normally in the pre-season a player gets three, four or five games especially and then he’s only out for four or five weeks. Instead, he was out for so long, so to get him back to his best level is not easy, but it was good to see that he showed some quality already today.
“It’s the same for him like the youngsters – it’s not enough to play at this level. You have to compete with Mo Salah, Cody Gakpo, Lucho [Luis Diaz], Darwin and Diogo [Jota], but it’s good to see that he’s back and that he had a few good moments in the game.”
Chiesa wasn’t quite able to mirror Jota’s feat of scoring on his first appearance since returning from a lengthy injury layoff, but there was still plenty to admire about the Italian’s performance against Southampton.
He twice came close to scoring, only for Saints defenders to make last-ditch blocks, and produced a moment of magic with a particularly captivating piece of ball control before casually nutmegging Mateus Fernandes.
As Slot said, there’s definitely scope for improvement from the 27-year-old in forthcoming games – as per Sofascore, he completed only seven passes in 45 minutes of action and lost four of his six duels, and a more potent forward may well have taken a coupleof the chances that he passed up.
Liverpool have three matches in eight days over the festive period, which should give Chiesa the platform to rack up some much-needed minutes and potentially put himself in the frame to start in the coming weeks.
At least now he’s back on the pitch and has something to build upon, and hopefully we’ll see a lot more from the talented Italian over the remainder of the season as he strives to make up for lost time.
The post ‘You can do better’ – Arne Slot throws down the gauntlet to Chiesa after long-awaited LFC return appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.
