Federico Chiesa's positive impact on his Liverpool teammates is already being felt , despite the Italian having yet to play for the club.
Star goalkeeper Alisson Becker has watched how the 26-year-old has ingratiated himself with the club and has been impressed by what he has seen out of the forward. Additionally, the Brazilian shared how Chiesa has had a rough go the last handful of seasons because of injury, but applauded how Liverpool landed the young star.
"I don't need to give you any introduction about Federico Chiesa, he is a wonderful player and you know him much better than I do," Alisson admitted to an Italian journalist Monday evening. "In the past years he has proven his quality. He got injured, he had some ups and downs, lately he had some bad periods, but the way he landed in Liverpool was extremely positive to me.
"He arrived in our squad with a huge smile painted on his face. Everybody is enthusiastic about Federico and he is extremely happy having this chance to play in this squad. His quality he shows every day. We are lucky to count on him. He is a top level player who can help our team."
And while Chiesa has yet to make his official debut with the club, the 26-year-old has made his impact felt in training. Reporter Vinny O'Connor shared what Chiesa has brought to the table and why the side are happy to have him in the long run.
"What he’s been doing during the international break, he was working with the U21s, building up his fitness," O'Connor said to Sky Sports. "Last week when we spoke to Arne Slot, he said Chiesa had been able to train with the main first-team group around three or four times.
"He was out there again today, he looked relatively sharp as well. It will be something the Liverpool coach needs to weigh up. ... The thing for Arne Slot is he has all of his forward options available to him at the moment, so [Mohamed] Salah, [Diogo] Jota, [Luis] Diaz, [Darwin] Nunez and [Cody] Gakpo.
"So when they talk about that decision that has to be made, they will talk about his relative fitness, his relative sharpness before seeing whether or not he can break into that five now."
With a bevy of options, Slot indicated as to what fans and the club can expect from Chiesa moving forward . "I always like to bring in quality players and I think he's a quality player that combines quality with an enormous work rate," the Liverpool boss said. "Works hard without the ball and combines this with scoring goals, and he can play several positions.
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"He is in our team selection (squad) for the first time, it would be a big surprise for everybody if he would start tomorrow. I don't think you should expect that he will start but he should make a few minutes if we need him.
"He's been training on his own at Juve for a long time, it's too early for him to play 90 minutes but hopefully he can make his first minutes in the upcoming fixtures."
That said, it remains to be seen in what capacity Slot will play Chiesa against Milan , if he does see time at all. Nevertheless, Chiesa's teammates already are impressed with what the Italian brings to the club.
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