Chiesa's Liverpool Future: A Crucial Pre-Season Under Iraola

Federico Chiesa’s Liverpool story has reached that uncomfortable stage where hope and hard reality no longer walk in step.

The numbers from 2025/26 are unforgiving. Thirty-three appearances in all competitions, but only two starts. Just 686 minutes across the entire campaign. In the Premier League, his presence shrank even further: 23 outings, one start, 278 minutes, 2 goals, 1 assist. Cameos, not campaigns.

That is a thin return for a player signed with fanfare. It is even thinner for a forward trying to rebuild rhythm, confidence and trust after a bruising first year at Anfield.

Staying to Fight, Not to Flee

Chiesa’s response is not to look for the exit. Not yet.

According to Fabrizio Romano, the Italian has made a clear decision: report for pre-season, work under new Liverpool head coach Andoni Iraola, and see where that takes him.

Romano outlined the situation on his Italian YouTube channel, listing the questions swirling around Chiesa’s name: Juventus, Inter, Napoli, Roma – all discussed as potential options, all waiting to see which way the wind blows.

But the key line was simple: Chiesa intends to participate in Liverpool’s pre-season and “play his cards” under Iraola.

No demand for guarantees. No public push for a transfer. Just a request for something far more basic – a fair look. A chance to show that, at 27, he is not finished at this level, not in this squad, not in this league.

Iraola’s First Big Call

For Iraola, this is an early and fascinating test of judgment.

On one hand, Chiesa brings experience, game intelligence and proven technical quality. On the other, his Liverpool record so far throws up obvious doubts about his sharpness, his ability to stay fit, and how naturally he fits into a demanding tactical system.

Iraola’s football is not gentle. It asks for relentless running, aggression without the ball, precision in transition and clarity of movement. At his peak, Chiesa ticks many of those boxes. He presses, he breaks lines, he attacks space with conviction.

The question is whether Liverpool will see enough of that version of Chiesa in July and August to justify keeping him once the window heats up.

Romano has already framed the timing. This is not a decision for late June. It is one that will be shaped by the grind of pre-season, by training sessions in the heat, by friendlies where Iraola will test who can live inside his structure and who cannot.

If, as Romano put it, pre-season makes it clear that “the space between Chiesa and Liverpool is limited,” then the Italian market will be ready in the final weeks of the window. That is when his name could move from background noise to active opportunity.

Serie A Waiting Quietly

The list of potential suitors reads like a roll call of Italian heavyweights: Juventus, Inter, Napoli, Roma. All plausible. All logical.

Chiesa remains a known quantity in Serie A. Clubs there understand both the player he has been and the frustrations he has recently endured. They know the damage he can do from wide areas, the energy he can inject into a game, and the risks attached to his recent inconsistency and fitness record.

For Liverpool, the equation is colder, stripped of sentiment. Iraola must decide whether Chiesa can offer depth, unpredictability and experience in a forward line already packed with options. If he convinces, an Anfield revival is still on the table. If he does not, the final weeks of the window will feel like the natural moment to close a chapter that never truly found its rhythm.

The Harder Road

For now, Chiesa has chosen the tougher path.

He will report. He will run. He will compete in a squad where nothing is handed out and everything is measured. He will try to shift perceptions inside a club that has so far seen more flashes than substance from him.

In a few weeks’ time, Iraola’s verdict will carry more weight than any rumour or whisper from Italy. And for Chiesa, that verdict may decide whether Anfield becomes a stage for redemption – or just a brief, unfinished stop on a career that still needs a defining act.