It’s fair to say Federico Chiesa‘s season hasn’t gone as he would have wanted it to, with the Italian having barely racked up 400 minutes of game time over the course of the campaign.
Chiesa has lined up in just three games since moving to Merseyside, with none of those starts coming in the Premier League, and his only Champions League start coming in a dead rubber against PSV Eindhoven.
The 27-year-old was viewed as an opportunistic addition to Arne Slot’s squad last summer due to his modest price tag, but there are now serious questions over whether he will be at Liverpool next season.
Despite his struggles, it seems as though Chiesa is able to find the funny side of the situation as he ‘liked’ a post on Instagram which poked fun at his plight.
The post said: “Fede [Chiesa] is like one of those guests you see in the all-inclusive hotel on holiday. Not a guest, always wandering around the place, knows all the staff, speaks to some of the guests, helps himself to food & drink but nobody knows what he actually does or if he even works there.”
Despite Liverpool wrapping up the title with four games of the season to spare, Chiesa has not started in either of Liverpool’s two games since the title-clinching 5-1 drubbing of Tottenham.
The winger was brought on as an 82nd-minute substitute in the 3-1 loss to Chelsea earlier this month, and he was not included in the game-day squad for the draw against Arsenal.
Asked after the Chelsea game why Chiesa was introduced so late on in proceedings, Slot explained: “Because I decided to bring other players in first, because I already brought Darwin [Nunez] in, so that wasn’t a position I could bring him in.
“Then Cody Gakpo, I liked him a lot today, he played a really good game and I’ve changed him and took him out in the last few weeks many times already.
“Mo [Salah] is always a player that can score a goal, so that’s why I first made different substitutions. In the end, I would almost say what people expect from me over here is we take an extra risk, so get a defender out, bring Federico in. That also led to us scoring the goal, but not enough time left for him to make the difference, unfortunately.”
Chiesa’s substitute appearance at Stamford Bridge guaranteed him a Premier League winner’s medal. Premier League rules stipulate that players must make five league appearances to absolutely guarantee themselves a medal — although the club could still have chosen to give him a medal had he not reached five appearances.
Former Liverpool player Mario Balotelli remains the only Italian player who has made a significant contribution to a Premier League title win — with Manchester City in 2011-12 — but Chiesa is the third player from Italy to collect a winner’s medal after Balotelli and former Chelsea goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini, who operated as Petr Cech’s back-up in 2004-05 and 2005-06.
