Premier League giants Liverpool have been enjoying a successful season this year, but it has not all been smooth sailing, with former Juventus winger Federico Chiesa struggling to make an impact.
The 27-year-old has so far managed just three appearances in the Premier League for Liverpool since signing from the Italian giants in the summer transfer window, as a muscle injury and a lack of match fitness have kept Chiesa firmly rooted to the sidelines.
However, it was the player’s abysmal performance against Plymouth Argyle that really brought his struggles to light. Liverpool were knocked out of the competition by the Pilgrims, after a Ryan Hardie penalty was enough to secure a shock 1-0 victory, with Chiesa being heavily criticised for his lack of creativity and poor dribbling.
With only a third of the season remaining, the winger’s £10 million transfer to Liverpool appears to have been a complete flop, as Chiesa seems a shadow of the player who was named in the EURO 2020 Team of the Tournament.
Chiesa really struggled to make an impact against Plymouth Argyle
To contextualise just how poor the former Fiorentina wide man was at Home Park, one only has to look at his statistics on the day.
With 66% pass accuracy, 24% duel success rate, and only 1/10 dribbles completed, it was a torrid afternoon for Chiesa, who just could not compose himself in the final third.
Arguably more worrying, however, was the stature of the opposition against whom he was playing. Plymouth currently occupy 22nd place in the Championship, having conceded 68 goals in 34 matches, winning only six times. Yet, this did not stop a rotation of Victor Pálsson and Julio Pleguezuelo from totally nullifying Chiesa, with Nikola Katić able to head away almost all of his crosses with ease.
Realistically, such a performance is symbolic of the lack of playing time the Italian international has had over the past few seasons, now looking barely half the player he was four years prior.
Repeated injuries have plagued Chiesa
A large part of Chiesa’s recent issues has stemmed from the incessant injury difficulties he has experienced in recent campaigns. Since the start of the 2021/22 season, the 27-year-old has missed 99 games of football across all competitions, including potential international fixtures.
That is a genuinely disastrous statistic when considering that all of the matches came between the ages of 24 and 27, arguably the prime years for a winger to be able to reach top speed and remain at their most agile.
Worst of all was the cruciate ligament injury the player sustained against Roma in 2022, which kept him out from January to October of that year. Sidelined for a total of 270 days, Chiesa has never been able to recapture the form he experienced during his first season at the Allianz Stadium, in which he bagged 14 goals and made 10 assists in all competitions.
This severe knee injury, coupled with other persistent muscular complications, has led to the forward struggling to get back to his best, which has been symbolised by the issues he has encountered since moving to Merseyside.
Chiesa has shown his quality in the past
Arguably most troubling about Chiesa’s inability to break into the Liverpool lineup is recognising the player he once was in Serie A, as well as for the Italy national team.
The 2019/20 season saw the Italian grab 10 goals and six assists for a Fiorentina side that only finished tenth in the league, well outside the European qualification places. However, he still ranked in the top 25% of the league’s wingers when it came to goals, as well as registering more shots on target than 94% of Serie A’s wide forwards.
With six assists and 48 chances created across the season, this prompted Juventus to sign the player on an initial two-year loan deal, with an option to buy for £34 million.
It was also just prior to Chiesa’s move away from La Viola that he had been named in the EURO 2020 Team of the Tournament during Italy’s competition-winning campaign, scoring two goals in seven appearances and dazzling supporters with his electric dribbling and accurate crossing.
Injury problems began to cause Chiesa’s downfall
Chiesa joined off the back of a very impressive summer with the national team, and then hit the ground running with Italy’s most successful club. After bagging 18 goals and 12 assists in a season-and-a-half in Turin, the Old Lady gladly took up the buy option.
However, after signing permanently for Juventus, the winger struggled to return to form after making his comeback from that horrible ACL injury. 11 goals and seven assists followed over the next two campaigns, and the wide man was sold to Liverpool after Juventus evidently recognised the player’s downward trend, something which has not been rectified on English soil.
Sadly for the 27-year-old, it is looking less and less likely that he will be able to re-establish himself at the top level. Fitness concerns and a lack of confidence continue to plague him. Having been operating superbly in the game’s upper echelons prior to his serious injury, Chiesa’s current struggles beg the question of “what could have been?”
With Liverpool keeping a cemented lineup and establishing a massive lead at the top of the Premier League, the Italian’s chances of breaking fully into the first team seem slim. A move away may be necessary to find the former attacking superiority Chiesa had displayed, and most fans would hope that injuries will not have ruined what was once an incredibly promising career.