Paul Joyce: Liverpool star ‘likely’ to leave the club | OneFootball

Federico Chiesa and Liverpool: A Talent Caught Between Eras

Liverpool’s season continues to move forward with an air of quiet tension. Results have largely followed expectation, progress has been steady rather than spectacular, and yet beneath the surface there remains a sense of unresolved questions. One of them centres on Federico Chiesa, a player whose presence feels simultaneously significant and peripheral, a forward who arrived with pedigree but has never quite felt essential.

The Italian’s situation has become a small but telling subplot of Arne Slot’s first campaign at Anfield, reflecting both the ruthlessness of elite squad building and the uncomfortable realities of transition at a club that is redefining itself.

Photo: IMAGO

Chiesa’s Liverpool Reality Under Slot

Chiesa has featured regularly enough to avoid obscurity, yet rarely enough to invite scrutiny. Twenty-two appearances across competitions suggest trust, but the context tells a different story. Many of those outings have been brief, functional, or dictated by rotation rather than necessity. He has played a supporting role in Liverpool’s unbeaten run rather than a defining one.

Slot’s Liverpool is built on structure, rhythm and positional clarity. Chiesa, for all his explosiveness, has often appeared like a footballer from another narrative: direct, instinctive, occasionally chaotic. That does not make him ineffective, but it does mean adaptation is required on both sides.

Liverpool’s domestic campaign, including a frustrating home draw with Burnley that trimmed their margin in the top-four race, underlined the fine margins involved. Rotation remains part of Slot’s thinking, particularly with European commitments looming, but Chiesa has not emerged as the solution to any structural problem.

What Paul Joyce’s Words Reveal

Insight into Chiesa’s future came from Paul Joyce, writing in The Times, whose reporting has long carried weight around Anfield. His assessment was notably blunt and revealing.

“Reinforcements on the right would be a priority then,” Joyce wrote, “especially if, as seems likely given he barely plays, Federico Chiesa departs after the end of the campaign.”

It was not a flourish or a prediction framed in ambiguity. The phrasing suggested inevitability rather than possibility. Joyce’s words, widely referenced across Liverpool coverage, framed Chiesa not as a long-term project but as a short-term experiment that has failed to embed itself deeply enough.

That view aligns with the sense that, despite public insistence that Chiesa remains part of Slot’s plans, internal priorities are already shifting elsewhere.

Squad Evolution and Tactical Priorities

Liverpool’s transfer activity this winter has been restrained, focused more on future planning than immediate upheaval. The arrival of Mor Talla Ndiaye and the departure of James Norris were functional moves, while missed opportunities elsewhere hinted at longer-term thinking.

Chiesa’s role sits uncomfortably within that framework. Signed from Juventus in 2024 for an initial £12.5 million, he arrived as a low-risk, high-upside option. He even collected a Premier League winner’s medal in his debut season. Yet football does not stand still, and Liverpool’s needs have evolved quickly under new leadership.

With uncertainty lingering over Mohamed Salah’s long-term future and the club missing out on other attacking targets, clarity on the right side of attack has become essential. Chiesa, once imagined as part of that clarity, now appears more like a placeholder.

A Departure That Feels Inevitable

There is no sense of failure here, at least not overtly. Chiesa has trained well, remained professional, and contributed when asked. But football at Liverpool operates on sharper criteria than adequacy. Players must either shape the narrative or be shaped by it.

As first reported by DaveOCKOP, the sense that Chiesa is “likely” to leave reflects a broader acceptance that his Liverpool story may already be approaching its conclusion. In a squad moving toward precision and control, his unpredictability has not quite found a permanent home.

If he does depart at season’s end, it will feel less like an exit and more like a quiet correction. A reminder that talent alone is never enough, and that timing, context and philosophy matter just as much as ability.