On Chiesa’s next steps as he seeks to gain match fitness, Slot added: “What makes it difficult is that we play so many games.
“What he needs is playing time and the problem is if you haven’t played for five or six months it is sometimes difficult for a manager to give him his first minutes, because you don’t exactly know what you can expect.
“Yes, I see him on the training ground, but ideally you see him in a friendly during the week or you see him in an U21 game or something like this – but that is not the situation we have, we play so many games.
“Maybe the Southampton game might be a good moment for him to get some playing minutes and then we know a bit better what we can expect from him. Of course we see his qualities, we know his qualities but he needs to get this fitness level.
“If you only have training sessions, that is not the same as playing time. You need to have playing time to reach certain fitness levels. But if you are competing for the league and competing in the Champions League it’s not always easy to find these minutes, unless we are sometimes 4-0 or 5-0 up.
“But for the whole season I think it was only once, against Bournemouth at home 3-0 up at half-time, for the rest it’s been a struggle or a fight until the last second of every game.”
Morocco
