Federico Chiesa: Analysing His Vital Data And What He Can Offer The Reds

Written on 28/08/2024

Merely 36 hours after initial reports that Liverpool had enquired about Juventus forward Federico Chiesa, we saw the Italian international land in the city to complete the procedures that would make his move to Anfield official.

In a transfer window that has, until last week, circled around the outgoings at Liverpool, the club is on the verge of making two additions to the squad (albeit the first one, Giorgi Mamardashvili, won’t be a part of the team until next summer).

Before the start of this window, not many would have predicted that the Reds would sign a forward before addressing the gap in the defensive midfield department. There is a reason why they went after Martin Zubimendi before the player made a U-turn.

Looking at it from the forward line perspective though, this Chiesa move is not a bad one. If we look at the crude stats, Liverpool scored 10 and five goals less than Manchester City and Arsenal respectively in the league last season. So, despite having the ‘best depth’ in the forward line, they came up short in the most important part of the game - scoring goals. Much of that got highlighted in defeats against Crystal Palace and Everton that derailed their title hopes in April.

Although there are several caveats to that stat (injuries being the major one), having a 26-year-old Italian international, who starred for his country in winning the 2021 European Championship, can only be a good thing, especially for the transfer fee quoted (£10m). 

Chiesa can play on the right or the left of the forward line. He has been used as a support striker as well. Him playing a lot of games on the right would mean that Liverpool have an automatic back-up for Mohamed Salah. Furthermore, the player is good enough to challenge for his place in other positions as well.

Let’s look at his numbers in detail from last season, address the elephant in the room - his injury record and state why Liverpool have taken this low-risk punt (financially speaking).

Chiesa was a youth product at Fiorentina before making his senior debut there in 2016. He was initially signed on a loan deal in 2020 by Juventus. Two years later, that move was made permanent. After doing well in the Euros in 2021, the 26-year-old picked up an ACL injury in the middle of the 2021/22 season. As a result of that, he missed nine months of football and struggled to get back to any sort of rhythm during the 2022/23 campaign.

It was last season when he managed to play a lot more minutes, move away from the post-ACL injury issues and produce his best tally for goals and assists in a Juventus shirt (10 goals and three assists in 2499 minutes in all competitions, 37 appearances [29 starts]).

There’s his timeline of minutes and starts in all competitions since making his senior debut for Fiorentina in 2016. The 2023/24 was supposed to be his comeback season after a disrupted 2022/23, the upward trajectory of both the metrics here gives us an indication that he is slowly getting back to his peak fitness (still going to take time).