Why Federico Chiesa is not in Liverpool squad for Tottenham

Federico Chiesa's absence from Liverpool's match-day squad at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday is not linked to any fresh injury setback. The Italy international returned on Wednesday night at Southampton for his first minutes since late September, featuring for the second half of the 2-1 win in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals.

However, Chiesa has been left out of Sunday's game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota on the bench to assist a starting front line of Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo and Luis Diaz, who leads the line in North London.

Chiesa's absence has led to speculation that the former Juventus forward has suffered another fitness setback but the ECHO understands the decision for him not to travel is not linked to any injury.

Arne Slot has instead opted to keep Chiesa under wraps as the club continue to take it careful with a player who has only played around 120 minutes since the summer months. The lack of a pre-season for the attacker has been regularly cited as a reason for Chiesa's fitness difficulties since he joined for a cut-price £12m deal in late August and the omission from the squad that faces Spurs is part of a methodical approach to getting him back up to 100%.

Slot had spoken on Wednesday evening after Chiesa's appearance against Southampton about the need for the Italian to build-up his match fitness.

"What I saw is what you can expect," Slot said. "If a player is out for five or six months, you cannot expect [perfect form]. I saw ups and downs. I saw some really good moments and I saw some moments where I felt like: 'OK, you can do better than this'.

"For me, that's completely normal if a player has been out for so long. He plays his first game in five, six months probably. I already said before that that makes it also so difficult for me because normally in the pre-season a player gets three, four or five games especially, and then he's only out for four or five weeks.

"Now he's out for so long. To get him back to his best level is not easy, but it was good to see that he showed some quality already today. But it's the same for him, like for the youngsters, it's not enough to play at this level. You have to compete with Mo Salah, Cody Gakpo, Lucho Diaz, Darwin Nunez, Diogo Jota. But it's good to see that he's back and he also had a few good moments in the game."

Liverpool: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Gravenberch, Mac Allister; Salah, Szoboszlai, Gakpo; Diaz.

Subs: Kelleher, Elliott, Endo, Jota, Nunez, Tsimikas, Jones, Quansah, Nyoni.