Federico Chiesa backed into a corner with Liverpool role as Arne Slot gives clear verdict

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Liverpool boss Arne Slot admits that Federico Chiesa faces huge competition to land a starting spot with the Italian's impact off the bench hailed - which could yet count against him.

Cheisa was Slot's only major signing in his first summer in charge but rarely featured. This term he's been given more opportunities, largely from the bench, but has come up with some huge contributions.

The former Juventus man came off the bench to score a vital late goal as Liverpool beat Bournemouth on the opening night of the Premier League . He also scored a late goal at Crystal Palace , which he thought was good enough for a point, before the Eagles struck late.

Slot insists every player has the chance to start, but Chiesa's quality from the bench could see him pigeonholed as an impact player with the forward coming up with a huge defensive play to deny Sunderland the win on Wednesday.

He said: "As I just said, every player has a possibility to start but we have many options to start in his position as I said many times. He has had an impact coming off the bench a few times. Normally you bring a striker in to score but he in this situation kept on running when a player might stop and think they cannot do a lot one-v-one so that says a lot the mentality to not concede."

All 10 of Chiesa's league appearances have come from the bench, meanwhile Florian Wirtz continues to have the faith of his manager. The German playmaker has endured a tough start to life in England but thought he'd scored his first goal against Sunderland - only for it to be ruled an own goal.

Slot insists that Wirtz cannot let his confidence levels rest on whether or not he finds the net. He said: "If you only have confidence from goals that is the wrong thing. You can see his confidence from how often he wants the ball and how often they give him it.

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"So he has a lot of confidence but it's also clear he came back with an injury from Germany, so I am happy he can play so many minutes. He has done well. Not surprised he was involved in the goal against Sunderland, he was one of the ones who kept constantly trying and was creative."

Liverpool fought back to earn a point, which prevented them losing again on Merseyside. Nevertheless they lost more ground to the teams above them as they sit ninth.

"It's definitely our first aim to come back to the top four because we are obviously not happy with the position [ninth] we are in at the moment," said Slot.

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