Virgil van Dijk fist-pump reaction after superb news coming out of Liverpool yesterday
Much has been made of Liverpool’s rivals’ injury difficulties in 2024/25, and not without good reason.
Manchester City, once the team to beat in English football under Pep Guardiola, have since seen their fortunes plummet following Rodri’s season-ending ACL injury.
Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal have likewise suffered their fair share of key absences – perhaps none more significant than the Martin Odegaard-shaped hole in the first-XI.
The Gunners only managed to pick up 11 points from a possible 21 on offer in the Premier League without their Norway international in the side. City have managed 14 from 30 so far without their No.16.
That said, it would be disingenuous to claim Liverpool haven’t their own injury struggles to contend with. Federico Chiesa, who was involved in some light exercises away from the squad yesterday, was among several key stars confined to the treatment table of late, including the likes of Diogo Jota and, more recently, Ibrahima Konate.
Federico Chiesa is back in Liverpool team training
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’.
How long has Chiesa been out injured?
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.
Unfortunately, this was punctuated with illness ahead of Liverpool’s midweek trip to Girona. As such, it was unsurprising to hear Slot admit that Federico Chiesa’s next best chance for playing minutes is unlikely to come sooner than our Carabao Cup quarter-final meeting with Southampton next Wednesday.
“Maybe the Southampton game might be a good moment for him to get some playing minutes and then we know a bit better what we can expect from him. Of course we see his qualities, we know his qualities but he needs to get this fitness level,” the former Feyenoord boss went on to add.
“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.”
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