Arne Slot is set to give Liverpool duo Harvey Elliott and Federico Chiesa the chance to impress in Saturday’s FA Cup tie against Accrington Stanley at Anfield.
Both players have found their game time limited so far this season with injuries hampering their progress.
Elliott missed two and a half months due to a broken foot and his only start so far under Slot was in last month’s Carabao Cup tie against Southampton.
“Harvey is a talented player. He’s in competition with many other good players,” Slot said.
“He was unlucky that after a few games he got injured and was out for a long time. In this league, with this intensity, when you’ve been out for a while, it’s not so easy to come back and be at your best immediately.
“I see that not only with Harvey, I see it with almost all the other players who have been out for five, six, seven weeks. That’s the balance we have to find – giving them playing time to get them back to their best level but still be able to win every game.”
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Chiesa has endured a number of fitness issues having missed pre-season prior to arriving from Juventus for an initial fee of £10 million ($12.3m) in late August.
The Italy international is expected to make only his second start for the club against the League Two outfit.
“It’s not only been difficult for him in terms of match fitness, it’s also because he has to compete with the likes of Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah,” Slot explained.
“Everyone here knows the numbers that Mo brings in. There’s not many times a reason to take him out during a game or before a game.
“He’s so fit. He was the fittest player in pre-season and he does everything every day to keep his match fitness. He wants to play every game and he shows up every game.
“It’s not only about Federico when we talk about his playing time being limited, it’s also about the others.
“In terms of Federico, the way he came in, the rest had already trained a lot and we had to bring him up. It’s a combination of reasons why he didn’t play much yet but let’s wait and see in the coming weeks and months if he’s able to help us. The second half of the season is even more important than the first half.”
Slot is expected to field a youthful line up with Jayden Danns, James McConnell and Trey Nyoni among those in contention. Dominik Szoboszlai is back in training after missing the past two matches due to illness.
Jarell Quansah has also recovered from the illness that forced him off in Wednesday’s controversial 1-0 defeat to Tottenham and is set to be available to face Accrington.
(Justin Tallis/Getty Images)
