Federico Chiesa and Liverpool teenager in contention to start against West Ham
The Italian winger and 17-year-old Trey Nyoni could feature in the Reds’ Carabao Cup defence against the Hammers
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Your support makes all the difference.Federico Chiesa and teenager Trey Nyoni are in contention to start for Liverpool in the Carabao Cup against West Ham.
Arne Slot has spoken positively about the Italian winger, whose fitness is progressing since his summer move from Juventus.
While Nyoni, the 17-year-old former Leicester academy graduate, has also impressed the Reds boss.
“I don’t think he (Chiesa) is able to play 90 minutes,” Slot said. “He only played 25 now, as a maximum, in the last three, four, five months. I don’t think he played any friendly for Juve as well.
“But he’s able to start, in our opinion, and if he will, let’s see. There are many options that we have, but he’s able to start in our opinion.
“But I don’t think he’s able to play 90 minutes at the level we are playing tomorrow against a strong West Ham team.”
Nyoni featured heavily in this summer’s pre-season friendlies, scoring at home to Sevilla last month.
With Slot having named the same three-man midfield for his first six competitive matches, changes are likely against West Ham at Anfield on Wednesday with the under-used Wataru Endo and Curtis Jones set to start.
It potentially leaves one space free in midfield which could be taken by 21-year-old Tyler Morton, who has nine first-team appearances to his name, or the wild card which is Nyoni.
“There is a fair chance for him (Nyoni) to be in our squad instead of being with the under-21s (who play Harrogate on Tuesday),” said Slot of the England youth international.
“He is a young player, really young, but with a lot of talent that had some impact in pre-season and when he played he even scored a goal.
“That’s probably also the reason why people see him as such a talent, because he has already shown some interesting things at his age.
“But only being a talent is not enough to play on a regular basis in the first team. We need to keep developing him and it is so important for him to keep playing his games.
“That’s why he played in Milan with the under-19s. For him to develop he needs to train with us and keep having his playing time at the highest possible level but training with the likes of all the players we have helps him to develop as well.”
“I want all of them to play. Unfortunately that’s no possible, because you can only name 11,” he explained.
“But we will play with the best possible team and that can sometimes also mean that other players that have played a lot are maybe a bit more tired.
“So that means, because the differences are so small, that I will select for this game different players.
“But they will come in today and we will look at how fit they are and then I will make the decision who is going to start and who isn’t.”
PA contributed to this report
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