Federico Chiesa is set to make his full debut for Liverpool on Wednesday night as Arne Slot emphasized that defending the Carabao Cup is one of his top priorities.
Slot plans to rotate his squad for the third-round clash against West Ham United.
However, given the depth at his disposal, he is still expected to field a strong line-up as Liverpool begin their defense of the trophy.
Federico Chiesa has made two substitute appearances since his £10 million transfer from Juventus, featuring briefly in the wins against AC Milan and Bournemouth over the past nine days.
Although the Liverpool head coach acknowledged that the Italian international is not yet ready for a full 90-minute match, he hinted that Chiesa is likely to start.
“He is able to start, in our opinion, and if he will, let’s see. There are many options we have,” Slot said of the Italian during his pre-match press conference.
“But he is able to start, in our opinion, but I don’t think he is able to play 90 at the level we are playing tomorrow against a strong West Ham team.”
The Dutchman added: “They have [played] – the ones that haven’t played a lot here at Liverpool have played their games for their countries.
“But it’s important for them to keep getting playing time and it’s very, very difficult to arrange some friendlies for them because of our schedule so that is why we have rotated already a bit in the last few games, where you saw other players coming in apart from the ones that all started in the first two or three games and this might be a chance for the players to get some playing time as well.
“But it’s not only about playing time, it’s also for them if they do really well in the week – which they have all done until now – they will get their chance eventually.
“That’s also what you saw with Darwin [Nunez] and with Cody [Gakpo] as well.
“So, let’s see who will get their chance tomorrow but most of them, maybe even all of them, will get their playing time during the season.”
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