Chiesa’s Liverpool Future: Fighting for His Place Under Iraola

Federico Chiesa’s Liverpool story has reached the uncomfortable middle chapter. The one where the hype of the unveiling has faded, the numbers look unforgiving, and the future feels like a coin toss.

For a player of his calibre, the 2025/26 season reads harshly on paper. Thirty-three appearances in all competitions, but only two starts. Just 686 minutes in total. In the Premier League, the picture shrinks even further: 23 outings, one start, 278 minutes, 2 goals, 1 assist. Those are squad-player figures, not the return of a marquee forward brought in to make a difference at Anfield.

It is nowhere near enough for Liverpool. It is nowhere near enough for Chiesa.

Staying to Fight, Not to Flee

This is the point where many players quietly instruct their agents to find the exit door. Chiesa has chosen something else.

According to Fabrizio Romano, the Italian is not pushing to leave immediately. His decision is clear: report for pre-season, work under new head coach Andoni Iraola, and see if there is still a Liverpool future worth fighting for.

Romano, speaking on his Italian YouTube channel, laid out the landscape around Chiesa’s name: Juventus, Inter as a potential right-wing option, Napoli, Roma – all logical destinations, all circling in theory rather than in action. There is curiosity in Italy about whether he becomes one of this summer’s big transfer stories.

But for now, the player’s stance is simple. He wants to be at Liverpool’s pre-season. He wants to meet Iraola. He wants to “play his cards” there.

That detail matters. Chiesa is not asking for guarantees. He is asking for a platform. A chance to prove that the player Liverpool thought they were signing is still in there, waiting for the right system, the right coach, the right run of games.

Iraola’s First Big Call

For Iraola, it is an early and revealing examination of his own judgement.

On one hand, Chiesa brings experience at the highest level, sharp movement when fit, and the kind of technical quality that usually finds a role in a top side. On the other, his Liverpool record so far invites hard questions: Is the edge still there? Can his body handle the demands? Does he truly fit what this new Liverpool will be asked to do?

Iraola’s football is not forgiving. It asks for relentless running, aggression without the ball, precision in transition, and clarity in every attacking movement. At his peak, Chiesa ticks many of those boxes. The doubt lies in whether that peak version can still be seen often enough, and whether pre-season can bring it back to the surface.

Romano’s update makes one thing clear: this is not a decision to be rushed. Not one for late June headlines or snap judgements.

If, over the course of pre-season, it becomes obvious that Chiesa’s role is marginal, then the equation changes. At that point, Romano suggests, his name could move to the forefront of the Italian market in the final weeks of the window. That is when Juventus, Inter, Napoli or Roma could stop monitoring and start acting.

Until then, Liverpool watch. Iraola assesses. Chiesa runs.

Serie A Waiting in the Wings

The Italian interest sits in the background, steady and logical. Chiesa remains a known quantity in Serie A: a winger whose strengths, flaws and recent frustrations are all understood.

For those clubs, he represents opportunity. For Liverpool, he represents a calculation.

If Iraola sees in him a forward who can add depth, unpredictability and experience to a squad that will need all three across a long season, then the story at Anfield might not be finished. Chiesa could yet carve out a meaningful role, not as the poster boy of a new era, but as a valuable piece within it.

If the fit is not there, the conclusion writes itself. The final weeks of the window would likely bring a parting of ways, the end of a move that never quite clicked into rhythm.

For now, though, Chiesa has deliberately chosen the harder path. No shortcuts, no early escape, no comfortable return to familiar surroundings. He will stay. He will train. He will compete. He will try to change minds inside a club that has already seen him struggle.

At Liverpool, this pre-season will not just shape his minutes. It may decide whether his time on Merseyside becomes a brief misstep on a decorated career – or the stage on which he proves there is still another act left in him.