I mean I can understand the Chiesa situation as much as I’d love for him to play more. Unless he’s retrained as a right-back in the past few weeks though it’s not really a comparable situation? It would be more like having Jota, Díaz, and Gakpo out from injury and playing Szoboszlai/Jones there instead of him.
He could have left Nunez out, who we are looking to sell anyway, or Jota, or Gakpo, or Diaz. He had no problem leaving Gravenberch out for Chelsea.
At this point, the only conclusion is that Slot is being brutally unfair to him.
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Or we’ve got a deal lined up for him to go and don’t want to risk him getting injured.
Think Nunez has earned the chance for a couple of last run outs in front of a home crowd.
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If there’s anyone who deserves a run out in front of the home crowd, it’s Chiesa, not Nunez.
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These are implicitly based on the presumption that we are looking to sell Núñez and/or Chiesa, however.
Being open to the right offers is rather different from actively looking to sell, which is also rather different from being ready to sell if we can bring in a player we’re actively targeting, who would displace them from the team.
Or, we really want to get Salah his 30/20?
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Why? Núñez has actually contributed to us winning the league, which as much as I might be rooting for Chiesa, he hasn’t done.
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Another conclusion is that he’s not good enough
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I think the reason why this seems less likely is that he has quite a decent track record behind him. It’s not as though he’s some unknown player that we plucked out of nowhere on a gamble.
Yes, but it may be fitness related, or that he is being asked to do things that he didn’t have to previously?
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It might be, but I’m not sure we would have recruited him if we didn’t have a reasonable assurance that he could do the latter.
As it is, I think one underrated factor as to why Elliott has been getting more game time but perhaps not him is that Elliott had a full pre-season and only got injured a couple of games into the season. Chiesa didn’t have the benefit of the former, and training with the team and fitting in, so getting into the team would be harder.
I think that ties into the not good enough argument - although more as a shorter-term problem than a more permanent one. It has certainly been Arne’s response when asked about Chiesa’s lack of game time.
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I presume you mean that he’s not good enough to feature more this season, but he may well be in longer-term plans?
I’d say I’d agree with that. As far as I’m aware, in games he’s come on as a substitute, it’s mostly been in break glass in case of emergency situations where we have 5 or 6 forwards on?
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Based on what exactly?
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Nunez is on the chopping block. We all know it.
Only way he’s a Liverpool player next season is if we can’t get someone, anyone, else in.
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Or if no one will take Darwin
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I think it’s more nuanced than that. Our standards aren’t going to be “anyone else”.
I think there will always be a taker, just at what price, and whether he’d want to go there.
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There could be a lot of explanations why he hasn’t been used much, but not being good enough is not one of them. Anyone who has eyes saw what he was bringing to our game whenever he got a few minutes.
We’ll see next season. If he can have an injury-free pre-season, we’ll see him play much more imo.
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Nunez has been playing for 3 years. He’s had his chances and he’s also on his way out. Chiesa hasn’t featured for more than 10-15 minutes on rare occasions.
He’ll probably leave without ever being given the opportunity to start a league game at Anfield. Considering his standing and quality, that’s unbelievable.
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Feel like I’ve been watching a different player. There have been glimpses of quality but he seems on a different wavelength to the rest of the team. Like he’s got his own ball.
And obviously our coaching team see a lot more of him in training so I’d be inclined to trust their judgement
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Nunez has contributed in those seasons, not as much as hoped but he has earned a send off.
Chiesa has done pretty much nothing. You can say it’s unbelievable he’s not been given a chance but there must be good reason. Even if that’s just that Slot doesn’t like him that’s fine by me given what Slot has achieved.