Liverpool have announced their Premier League squad for the first half of the season, with Federico Chiesa among four players included who were previously omitted from Arne Slot‘s selection for the Champions League. The Italian star, along with Rhys Williams, Calvin Ramsay and Fabian Mrozek, have all been added to the Reds’ roster, replacing Rio Ngumoha and Giovanni Leoni from the European competition quota.

Leoni arrived at Anfield in a £26m deal over the summer and appears to have a bright future ahead of him. Despite his omission from Liverpool‘s senior squad, the young defender will still be eligible to play in the Premier League this season due to qualifying as an under-21 player.

UEFA competition registration rules differ, rendering neither Ngumoha nor Leoni eligible for a ‘List B’ spot despite being under 21. This is because they haven’t been at Liverpool long enough to earn such status.

Williams and Mrozek occupy homegrown slots in the Reds squad, joining Conor Bradley, Jeremie Frimpong, Joe Gomez, Curtis Jones and Freddie Woodman.

Liverpool still have one homegrown slot available, which would have been filled by Marc Guehi had Crystal Palace not cancelled his last-minute move to Anfield.

Slot spoke about the failed transfer on Friday, saying: “I think it would be ridiculous if I’m going to deny we were close to signing him. That is so out in the open that it would be ridiculous.

“These things happen in football, it happened to our players maybe in the past as well that they thought they were so close to signing somewhere else and then in the last moment, things change.

“This can happen. For me, we would like to sign him of course, because we were in for him.”

Meanwhile, Chiesa and Ramsay take up the Reds’ final 16th and 17th overseas slots, replacing Ngumoha and Leoni.

However, it is unlikely that Williams, Ramsay and Mrozek will feature in Slot’s first team this season, with the trio instead training with Rob Page’s under-21s side.

Liverpool have registered a number of other under-21 players alongside Ngumoha and Leoni.

Players such as Stefan Bajcetic, Luke Chambers, Jayden Danns, Kaide Gordon, Trent Kone-Doherty, Amara Nallo, Trey Nyoni, Calum Scanlon and summer signings Armin Pecsi and Will Wright are all eligible for selection if needed.

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