Liverpool's Federico Chiesa conundrum: Reds could be forced to cut injury-ravaged summer signing loose after awful start to Anfield career

Chiesa's recent fitness issues were hardly a secret. He discussed them openly, admitting that the ACL injury he suffered in January 2022 "slowed down" his career - because even after his return to action seven months later, his body struggled to get back up to speed. Minor muscular problems and even just basic fatigue were recurring problems.

However, Chiesa began to look like his old explosive and effective self last season. He played 37 times in all competitions for Juve in 2023-24- the most games he'd managed since the campaign leading up to Euro 2020, which ended Italy triumphing at Wembley and Chiesa being named in the team of the tournament after a string of decisive and dynamic displays in the knockout rounds.

Consequently, Chiesa was entitled to claim that he was "close to the level I was at before the injury" after turning in a man-of-the-match display over Albania at last summer's European Championship in Germany.

So, why were Juve willing to let him leave? Money, essentially. The Bianconeri offered Chiesa a contract extension but on pretty much the same terms as his existing deal - which is not something that the player and his agent were willing to accept.

Consequently, Juve decided to try to sell the Italy international to the highest bidder, so as to avoid losing him for nothing when his deal expired in the summer of 2026.

Inter, AC Milan and Roma were also said to be interested but there were no concrete offers. The assumption was that the financial risk was too great for clubs that have recently embraced a far more prudent approach to the transfer market.

They clearly didn't feel it was worth investing a significant sum of money in transfer fees and wages - at least by Serie A standards - in a player with a concerning injury record.

Liverpool did, though.

As far as Liverpool were concerned, Chiesa represented a low-risk acquisition, the kind of "opportunistic" signing that Richard Hughes had discussed shortly after taking over as the club's new sporting director during the summer. After all, it's rare that a European Championship winner of such undisputed talent becomes available for just £10 million ($12.6m) - the same money the Reds paid for Fabio Borini in 2012.

There were, of course, mitigating circumstances and there was also a valid argument to be made that Liverpool didn't really need another wide player. A left-sided centre-back and a defensive midfielder were considered the club's transfer market priorities.

Still, Slot seemed satisfied. "I have said all summer that it is not easy to sign players for Liverpool because the standard of players we have is so high but in Federico I firmly believe we are signing someone who enhances what is already here," the Dutchman told the club's official website.

"It’s not just his talents physically; Federico has experience of winning trophies, of course one with his national team, and dealing with setbacks and challenges. It’s the mentality we want here at Liverpool. Not only this, but he is someone who has an incredible work-rate to match his talent.

"He is a player who can make an impact and can help the team, so this is credit to Richard Hughes and everyone involved in bringing him to Liverpool."

And, in their eyes, this was a calculated gamble with the potential to pay off handsomely. Right now, though, the fear is that it's going to backfire badly.

As we approach the end of November, Chiesa's condition has already become something of a conundrum for Liverpool, described by Slot as simultaneously "simple" and "difficult".

The bottom line is that he has managed just three appearances for Liverpool, during which he's managed a paltry 78 minutes of game time and such numbers have provoked a little panic among the supporters.

However, Slot has tried to allay their fears by pointing out "many times" that Chiesa has not been helped by the fact that he was frozen out by Juventus coach Thiago Motta before leaving Turin, meaning he arrived at Anfield without a proper pre-season under his belt.

The Reds boss has also argued that the 27-year-old's attempts to return to full fitness have also been hindered by "going to a league where the intensity might even be higher than the Italian league". Slot admitted: "We just faced the two Italian teams (AC Milan and Bologna in the Champions League), so I can say this now.

"Anyway, all of this makes it difficult for him to make the step towards the intensity levels the rest of the team is at right now and it's a big disappointment for him that he is going in and out of the training sessions all the time. I feel sorry for him."

Unsurprisingly, Slot's comments led to talk of Chiesa being allowed to return to Italy during the January transfer window to give him a better chance of getting back on a football field with a view to returning to Merseyside next summer fighting fit and capable of challenging for a starting spot.

The usual names were bandied about - Inter, Milan and Roma - but, once again, money makes an approach unlikely unless Liverpool would be willing to subsidise a sizable part of his pay packet. Of course, that's supposing that the Reds are actually open to letting Chiesa leave halfway through the season and Slot says it's not something that has crossed his mind at all.

"First and foremost is that he gets fit again and then we can see where he is," the former Feyenoord coach told reporters at the tail end of October. "He missed pre-season [with Liverpool] and in pre-season [with Juventus] he was on low-intensity sessions as he had to train with three or four players separate from the group. Going from then to a high-intensity league, to a high-intensity playing style is difficult in general for every player, but especially if you had a pre-season like this.

"We knew this before and we knew we had to be really careful to adjust where we could to his individual needs. But it hasn't been perfect yet so we are trying to find the right way of building him up without overloading him. That has been difficult up until now because he goes a bit up and down. Sometimes he is there with us, trains a few days, and then he goes out for an injury again. But I have full confidence that will happen for him, so let's just allow him to get fit first."

Slot has made no secret of the fact that Chiesa's unavailability for the best part of two months has been "far from ideal for him and for us because with the injury to Dioga [Jota] we have had only four attackers available, so this could have been a great moment for Federico to get more playing time".

However, now that the final international break of 2024 is out of the way, the big games are only going to keep coming for Liverpool over an intensive festive period that will prove the ultimate test of their Premier League title credentials and Chiesa is finally set to return to training, meaning he could yet play a small but significant role in the bid to continue fighting on four fronts into the New Year.

Of course, if he doesn't get to experience the emotion of playing at Anfield again before the winter window opens, the questions over Chiesa's future are only going to intensify, particularly as Scotland sensation Ben Doak, who is currently on loan at Middlesbrough, is presently looking more like a more suitable Salah understudy for next season.

Slot is dead right when he says that Chiesa's quality has "been very clear for a number of years" but his injury issues have been a cause for concern for some time, too - and the past couple of months have illustrated why. He's lost his place in the Italy squad and barely featured for his new club. In that sense, the next six weeks really could rank among the most important of Chiesa's career. Because if he can't play, he can't prove himself, and the worryingly simple solution to that particular conundrum from his perspective would be for Liverpool to remove him from the equation.