Liverpool have the answer to their Mo Salah problem - and it only cost them £12m

A young Liverpool side found themselves conceding Liverpool’s first and only loss in the Champions League so far this season on the last day of the league phase.

The Reds still finished top of the Champions League’s 36-team league due to their level of play beforehand, with Arne Slot feeling he was able to take it a bit easier for the trip to Eindhoven to play PSV.

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Slot fielded a young, mismatched side in order to give the majority of his starters a much needed break.

And you could, unfortunately, tell. No one particularly disgraced themselves - Andy Robertson and Wataru Endo at centre-back, Tyler Morton, James McConnell and Jayden Danns were all irregular sights who played well enough, but Liverpool were not their usual dominant selves.

But the big positive that Slot et. al. will take away is that Federico Chiesa looked like the player that Liverpool thought they were signing back in the summer.

Chiesa’s ill-fated season so far has been well documented. A spate of injuries has stopped the Italian from achieving any run of time in the squad and rumours of his immediate departure from Merseyside began to loom.

But when Liverpool needed someone to step up it was Chiesa that did.

Federico Chiesa was who Liverpool thought he could be

He won the penalty for the Reds’ opening goal as he nicked the ball from Joey Veerman, who himself was mid-swing, clattering Chiesa’s leg instead of the ball.

And PSV’s equaliser didn’t dispel him either, with goalkeeper Walter Benitez only being able to palm Chiesa’s rasping volley into the path of Harvey Elliott who dispatched it to make it 2-1.

Liverpool were lacklustre thereafter, going 3-2 down before half-time and not being able to make a dent in PSV’s backline in the second half.

But Chiesa was anything but. He had the most dribbles in the game with seven, completed the most with three and won 10 duels, the most of any player in the game. He was dogged, dynamic and dutiful in his role, picking up where other senior players couldn’t.

And he did this without having Mo Salah, Luis Diaz, Alexis Mac Allister and Trent Alexander-Arnold to help him operate down the right side.

It was exactly what Arne Slot needed to see from him tonight. The £12m price tag raised eyebrows when it was cut - both because it felt like a steal and because of its necessity due to his inconsistency.

It was one game but it came right as Liverpool needed it. With the fixtures coming thick and fast across all competitions now, it might just be that Chiesa will contribute to the trophy charge after all.

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