Federico Chiesa has been singled out for his ‘poor performance’ as Liverpool crashed out of the FA Cup to Plymouth Argyle.
Just as talk of a quadruple was beginning to bubble again, the Reds fell to a shock 1-0 defeat at Home Park as the side bottom of the Championship upset the Premier League leaders.
Plymouth turned in a heroic performance to provide the shock of the fourth round but Arne Slot was made pay the price for naming a weakened side.
Alisson Becker, Andy Robertson, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah were among the first-team stars given the afternoon off. Trent Alexander-Arnold missed out through injury with Joe Gomez also forced off inside the opening `10 minutes.
Slot still had a strong attack at his disposal with Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz joining Chiesa in attack with Darwin Nunez later coming off the bench.
But the Reds barely troubled the Plymouth goal, failing to get a shot on target until the 70th minute.
Chiesa, a summer signing from Juventus, was making just his fourth start for the club, struggled to make an impact up against the Plymouth backline.
On ITV punditry alongside Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler, former England international Karen Carney was critical of the Italian’s performance, insisting he is still ‘way off the boil’ half a season into his Anfield career.
‘Chiesa, to be honest, I thought was poor,’ Carney said.
‘All Liverpool fans, after his injuries and stuff, are probably wanting him to do well but way off the boil today – not good enough.’
Slot meanwhile defended his selection decisions after resting so many big names, underlining the need to rotate his squad.
Chiesa started his fourth game of the season
‘We have to play many games,’ said Slot. ‘The last few weeks, we’ve played every week two times. The upcoming weeks we have to play twice.
‘It’s not only good for them [his starters] to once in a while have a week where they only play one game but also for the ones here today, they need the intensity of a game. They had that against PSV [in the Champions League]. Unfortunately they lost that one. And they had that today and unfortunately we lost this one as well.
‘Today also showed why we play with the ones we played today. These players need game rhythm as well.
‘You saw today some of these players really need games like this to be ready for the last three months of the season.
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