One Premier League game into the 2025-26 campaign is probably a little early to be making any sort of grand pronouncements about clubs and players and how they’ll fare across the entirety of the season.
There can be promise, though. Cause for hope. Such is the case for Liverpool and forward Federico Chiesa, who made a match-winning difference off the bench against Bournemouth on Friday and who manager Arne Slot says is looking better than at almost any point last season.
As a result, after heading
into the summer expected to move on, the 27-year-old is now expected to stay, and it at least does sound as though his manager is feeling positive about the contributions he believes Chiesa will be able to make to the side moving forward.
“If he’s more available he has more of a chance to make an impact and for playing time, but then it’s about him staying as fit as he is at the moment,” Slot noted. “I see a totally different Federico now than through large parts of last season.
“It is completely normal because he missed out on the whole pre-season and then comes into a Premier League rhythm in terms of the amount of games and in terms of intensity. So he’s in a much better place now and as we can all see, when we needed a goal I looked to the bench and only had him and Rio [Ngumoha], a 16-year-old, as attacking options.
“So for me, although Rio did really well in pre-season, it was quite a normal choice to make to bring [Chiesa] on and he delivered.”
Chiesa may have delivered, but following the sales of Darwin Nuñez and Luis Diaz as well as the tragic death of Diogo Jota, even the Italian’s revived fortunes and Rio’s promise leave the Reds looking short an attacker as they head into a season where they will expect to play 60+ games.
With less than two weeks to go in the transfer window and Liverpool struggling to convince Newcastle to let Alexander Isak depart, that has plenty of fans feeling nervous. If Chiesa is able to contribute now, though, it certainly helps.
