The state of play

With it seemingly just being a case of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the deal for Chiesa, as well as confirmation of a new keeper arriving (albeit next season) where does that leave us going into the season and what does it tell us about the plans moving forward?

Let’s start with Chiesa. He was one of the stars of the Euros before last, arguably Italy’s standout player, or at least standout attacker as they went on to win the tournament, smashing and humiliating England in the final. He looked for all intents and purposes like one of Europe’s brightest young talents and potentially the next poster boy of Italian football. He’d sealed his big money move to Juventus, a €60 million deal which is massive money for an Italian club and looked set to kick on.

Alas, what followed was a familiar sad story for many players – injury and not just any injury, THE injury! The dreaded ACL!! A long spell on the sidelines followed and he became something of a forgotten man across Europe. He returned and played over 30 games last season, with a more than respectable goal return of roughly 1 in 3 but has since been rather surprisingly frozen out by Juve, although it’s since come to light that financial difficulties have forced their hand in selling players, albeit the official line is that he’s not in the new manager’s plans which may or may not be 100% true.

Why have we signed him then? The club have clearly identified something in Chiesa’s game as we’ve been linked with him multiple times over the last couple of years, indicating the club has been tracking him for a while and that suggests to me he’s a target that’s been identified by our data model, much like Salah before him who we also tracked for a number of years before getting our man.

Three years ago, this signing would’ve been met with with far more excitement than it is now but his stock has fallen quite significantly due to his injury and he’s also rather unfairly been labelled as injury prone on the back of it, given he’s not missed a sustained period through injury since his return and wasn’t known as injury prone before his ACL issue. It is the injury that sets alarm bells ringing however, as many players are never quite the same after. He did have youth on his side when it happened however and has had the season it took Virgil to get back up to speed so we can only hope that his knee issues are behind him with no long term lasting damage.

So where’s he going to play? He’s a predominantly right footed player and having viewed a heat map of his positions last season, he predominantly played off the left. He is however known as a versatile player and so I assume he’s been brought in to predominantly rotate with Salah on the right, given we’re already stacked with players who prefer LW. Now it’s always possible the club know something we don’t – perhaps Slot has already decided he doesn’t fancy Nunez and will look to move him on next season and plans on playing Jota and Gakpo through the middle, freeing up the LW somewhat. Maybe Diaz has expressed a desire to leave and will he on his way next season. This is pure speculation however and just going on what we DO know, it would appear he’s been signed to play predominantly on the right in my opinion.

The alternative of course is that a reported fee of £10 million the £2.5 million in add ons, it may just be that the club feel it’s far too good an opportunity to miss in terms of signing an established Italian international in his prime for such a modest fee. He’d have to monumentally flop for us not to make a profit should we sell him in 2 years time but I don’t see this as just a business signing, the way I always felt Minamino was. Chiesa has proven he can perform at elite level and so I suspect it’s a case of a low risk, high reward in the clubs eyes. A modest fee for a potentially world class player.

What are the concerns then? Well for a start, I’m always concerned when we’re linked to an Italian player, as traditionally they don’t travel well and especially not on U.K. shores. Very few Italians have moved to the PL and excelled, although there are of course some notable exceptions. Of all Europe’s top five leagues though, Serie A and the PL are the furthest apart in terms of similarities. Italian football is defensive minded and all about slow, patient buildup. It’s a far cry from the blood and thunder of the PL. Infinitely slower and nowhere near as physical and so that’ll take a bit of getting used to for Chiesa, although given his lack of preseason, I don’t expect we’ll see too much of him for the first month or so and he’ll likely be eased into the mix slowly which will hopefully help him adjust somewhat before starting games. The other concern of course is the aforementioned injury. We’ve been badly scarred by injury prone players in the last decade and so the trepidation amongst the fans on this issue is more than understandable.

What also remains to be seen is what his signing means for Ben Doak, not to mention Kaide Gordon and even Danns. I said last night that from what we’ve seen this summer, it doesn’t appear that Slot has much faith in young players, or certainly not in the way Klopp did. We’ve seen numerous sales and loans sanctioned, including some surprising ones such as Bobby Clarke being sold and the news today that Bajcetic is going out on loan. Clarke was on the fringes of the first team last season and showing a lot of promise, while Bajcetic had pretty much established himself in the first team squad prior to his injury and given the fact we’re somewhat light in his position to the point we tried to sign a new 6, coupled with Slot clearly not fancying Endo and I think it shows Bajcetic isn’t really in the manager’s plans. To that end, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Doak and Kaide go out on loan, or even be sold in the last days of the window. I certainly think Kaide’s LFC career is all but over at senior level, although I think it would be a mistake to sell Doak who has huge potential. Even from a business perspective, a couple of successful loans will increase his value significantly, even if he never plays for our first team again. Klopp used to always say if you have a talented youngster that you believe in, don’t sign a player that’s going to block his path. Unfortunately for Doak, I suspect that’s exactly what’s happened to him with the signing of Chiesa.

Anyway, moving on. The signing of a new keeper for a significant fee took us all by surprise I think. In Alisson we have arguably the best in the world who has made no noises about leaving, quite the opposite in fact in saying he’s very happy at LFC and wants to see out his contract and potentially sign a new one. Given he’s got two years left on his current deal, with the club also having the option of extending that for a further year should they wish, I think most thought our GK situation was settled for the foreseeable but it doesn’t look that way.

When I first heard of our interest in a keeper, I assumed Kelleher was on his way and we were lining up his replacement but you don’t spend £30 million on a backup keeper. Now it may be that the club have pulled off a stroke of long term thinking genius. Valencia are having financial difficulties and so we’ve got him for probably less than market value, or certainly what his value would be in a year or two’s time. He’s to be loaned back to Valencia this season where he’ll continue his development but if Alisson’s comments above are to be believed, he’ll still have at least one or more likely two years left on his current deal, as I’d be amazed if the club didn’t activate the extra year extension clause, for sell on value if nothing else.

Now I presume the long term plan has been discussed with our new recruit and he’s happy with it. It may be that he goes out on loan for a second time, perhaps to a PL club or maybe the club are inexplicably not planning on activating Ali’s extra year extension and have informed him he’ll be backup for one season before taking over as first choice. I can’t see him being happy with that situation for any more than one season though and like I said, you don’t spend €30 million on a backup keeper.

It does seem a strange one to me though. Goalkeepers age differently to outfield players and Ali is in his prime for a keeper and should have another good few years at the top. The likes of Buffon and Van Der Sar were still top class keepers at 40 and Alisson is in their bracket talent wise, so it seems a very premature succession plan to me, with successions for Van Dijk and Salah being far more pressing with no movement on that front. Unless of course that’s what Chiesa is meant to be.

Anyway, it’s a brave new world and adventure we’re embarking upon and will take a bit of getting used to. Only time will tell if the decisions being taken now are inspired or folly but as always with this club, it’s certainly not boring.

Most importantly though, let’s put those Mancs to the sword on Sunday. Walk on!