Back in the summer of 2021, Federico Chiesa was one of the most highly regarded forwards in European football. The Italian international was rated as an €80M player, and there were plenty of rumours linking him with clubs in Spain and England, including to Liverpool.
In the end it was no surprise, then, that Juventus converted his loan from Fiorentina to a permanent transfer for around half that. The following season, though, an ACL injury saw him sidelined for an entire year, and the road to full recovery was a long and painful one.
Now, Chiesa is 26 years old and down to the final year of his Juventus deal, with contract talks stalled and speculation that Barcelona were sniffing around. Without the financial wiggle room to cover his wages, though, such a deal had begun to seem impossible.
Queue Liverpool and what appears a very opportunistic swoop, as the past 24 hours have seen a rapidly developing story of the Reds moving for a value target who could be had for as little as €15M with Juventus wanting to avoid losing Chiesa on a free next summer.
While the primary sources so far are less than entirely reliable, there have been hints of confirmation from Liverpool-connected journalists—and private jets making their way from Italy to Blackpool, the Reds’ favourite landing site for transfer deals, are being tracked.
Chiesa isn’t the transfer target he once was, perhaps, with that ACL injury in particular a lingering worry and question marks around his durability in general, but he did make 33 appearances in Serie A last season and 37 overall while playing more than 2,500 minutes.
He’s also able to play across the front line and would be more capable of deputizing both for Mohamed Salah on the right and Dominik Szoboszlai in the ten in Arne Slot’s system, and for €15M that—and seeing if he can now mostly stay fit—seems hard to pass up.
It’s not a top position of need, perhaps, but from a value and upside standpoint signing a player who was considered one of the very best in his position not all that long ago for an absolute bargain fee is the sort of surprise move one might expect Liverpool to make.
