Liverpool head coach Arne Slot says Federico Chiesa’s injury issues are linked to missing pre-season and adjusting to the greater intensity of English football.
The £12.5million summer signing from Juventus has only played 78 minutes for the club across three appearances since making the move from Italy.
Chiesa, 26, hasn’t featured since last month’s Carabao Cup third-round win over West Ham United and didn’t travel with the squad for Wednesday’s Champions League clash against RB Leipzig, with Slot reluctant to put a timeframe on his return to action.
“With Federico, he missed a complete pre-season and then went into a league where the intensity might be higher than the Italian league,” Slot said.
“That makes it difficult for him to make the step towards the intensity levels the rest of the squad are at.
“Difficult to say (when he will be back) but it’s a big disappointment for him that he’s going in and out of the training sessions all the time.
“I feel sorry for him but he signed a long-term contract so we will see what he brings for us. At the moment unfortunately for him he’s not available.”
Diogo Jota also missed the trip to Germany after being forced off during Sunday’s 2-1 Premier League victory over Chelsea at Anfield. However, Slot believes that the Portugal attacker is suffering from bruised ribs rather than anything more serious.
“We all saw Diogo get a knock when he was trying to go towards goal and was brought down,” he explained.
“That was not the biggest problem as the other player fell on to him and that hurt him so much that he couldn’t carry on or come with us here.
“It is difficult to judge at this moment how long it is going to take. He felt somewhere over here (points to chest), it is bruised, so we’ll have to see how long it is going to take.”
Conor Bradley is set to be out for a couple of weeks with a rib injury picked up on international duty, while Harvey Elliott and Alisson remain sidelined.
If Liverpool beat Leipzig it will be the first time in the club’s history that they have won 11 of their opening 12 games of a season.
However, Slot wants to see his players lift the bar higher, performance-wise.
He said: “You cannot ask for much more with results but there is always room for improvement.
“I don’t think we outplayed Chelsea, we certainly did not — I think they were more dominant than us with the ball.
“In an ideal world I would have seen us dominate the complete game. We are not there yet. The good thing is you see a team fighting for every moment in the game. I am hoping we become more dominant than we were against Chelsea.
“Maybe that says a lot more about Chelsea. A lot of people in England made a bit of fun about them investing so much money. In my opinion, they have done so well to bring many talented players in. With such a strong squad and manager, they will be up there in the coming years. That’s my opinion, let’s see if I’m right.”
(Top photo: Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
