Arne Slot explains why Federico Chiesa was really not in the Liverpool squad to play West Ham

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Liverpool were comfortable winners against West Ham on Sunday, brushing the Hammers aside to win 5-0.

The victory moved the Reds eight points clear at the top of the Premier League table and enhanced their chances of winning the title.

There were plenty of talking points from the London Stadium, with Joe Gomez’s hamstring injury the only blot on the Liverpool copybook.

Arne Slot spoke after the match to confirm that Gomez could be out for ‘a while‘ after being substituted off.

Another potential problem for Liverpool was the absence of Federico Chiesa.

Chiesa was a surprise omission from the Liverpool squad on Sunday evening and speaking in his post-match press conference, Slot gave an explanation as to why the Italian did not travel.

Arne Slot explains Federico Chiesa absence

Chiesa simply has not got going at Liverpool just yet. Nevertheless, having made his comeback from injury during last week’s win at Southampton, the hope was that he’d turned a corner.

The 27-year-old was on the bench during Thursday’s win over Leicester and as it turned out, the game at West Ham may have been a good time to give him minutes.

That Chiesa was not even in the travelling squad led to some worry that he had picked up a fresh fitness problem.

But according to Slot, leaving Chiesa on Merseyside was simply another step on the Italy international’s route back to full availability.

READ MORE: Whether Federico Chiesa actually wants to leave Liverpool in the January transfer window

“Federico, I’ve said many times already, we are working on two things, we are working on his match fitness and whenever we can we try to bring him with the team,” said the Liverpool head coach.

“He was on the bench during the week and we thought it was better for him to have some extra training sessions instead of joining us. It’s a constant balance we have to find between getting him fitter and fitter and letting him join the team.”

When will Federico Chiesa be available?

Despite Slot’s explanation, this remains a slightly baffling topic. There doesn’t seem much use in leaving Chiesa out if he is indeed coming back to fitness.

Surely it’s better for the former Juventus man to feel involved rather than have him excluded from the squad?

While we won’t argue with Slot’s methods, it does seem as though this would have been a better fixture to include Chiesa in than next weekend’s clash with Man United.

Liverpool do not play for a week now, so perhaps Fede can prove himself and get into the squad for that big fixture.

But if Slot deems that he still is not ready, then that’ll be just one more match in which Chiesa has not been able to get his match fitness back. A bizarre situation all around, really.