Inter, Atalanta and Lazio Want Chiesa: Why Liverpool’s £10m Misfit Must Leave in January

Federico Chiesa’s Liverpool nightmare is finally approaching its end. According to Calciomercato, carried by BBC Sport’s Saturday gossip column, Inter Milan, Lazio and Atalanta are all interested in signing the 28-year-old in January — and the Italian forward is ready to leave Anfield. More than two years after his £10m move from Juventus, the winger has managed just 50 appearances and nine starts, and he is yet to play a single minute under Andoni Iraola this season. Here is the full tactical breakdown: why Liverpool should sanction the sale, how Chiesa fits each of the three Serie A systems, and why one destination makes far more sense than the other two.

The Report: Inter, Atalanta and Lazio Circle for Chiesa’s January Exit

The story broke in Italy and landed in England within hours. Calciomercato reported that Inter Milan, Atalanta and Lazio are all closely monitoring Federico Chiesa’s situation at Anfield, with a view to making a move in the winter transfer window. BBC Sport’s Saturday gossip column then carried the report to a UK audience, stating verbatim: “Inter Milan, Lazio and Atalanta are interested in signing Liverpool’s Federico Chiesa, 28, with the Italian forward ready to leave Anfield in January.”

The reporting is careful rather than breathless, and that matters. Multiple outlets stress there are no concrete negotiations yet — the interest sits at the monitoring stage, with informal contact between the Serie A clubs and the player’s representatives. What has changed is Liverpool’s posture: the club are unlikely to stand in Chiesa’s way if a deal can be negotiated, with only 18 months left on his contract by January. A loan until the end of the season with a purchase option, or a cut-price permanent deal in the region of €20m, are both live possibilities.

This is not the first time Italy has come calling. Inter came close to landing Chiesa in the summer as an alternative to Luis Henrique before that deal fell down, which tells you the admiration is long-standing rather than opportunistic. What is new is the player’s own stance: Chiesa has made it clear he wants to be a key player somewhere, and Anfield is no longer that place.

Chiesa’s Liverpool Career in Numbers: 50 Games, 9 Starts, 0 Minutes

The raw figures are damning. Signed in August 2024 for around £10m from Juventus, Chiesa has made 50 appearances and just nine starts for Liverpool, scoring five goals and providing four assists. Last season he started a single one of his 26 Premier League appearances, totalling 318 league minutes. This season: zero competitive minutes, and exclusion from the club’s Champions League squad.

Context softens the numbers slightly — he missed the start of the current campaign with a muscle injury sustained in pre-season, which manager Andoni Iraola confirmed back in August — but it does not explain the scale of the marginalisation. Even after Mohamed Salah’s summer departure, the door never opened. Younger players such as Rio Ngumoha and Lewis Koumas have staked stronger claims for minutes, and our predicted Liverpool XI for the Manchester City clash had Chiesa down as no better than a plan B behind Barcola, Muñoz and the returning Gakpo.

At 28 — he turns 29 on October 25 — Chiesa is not a development project. He is a 51-cap Italy international and a European champion who needs to play. As he told La Gazzetta dello Sport: “I want to get back to being a key player, but to do that I need to play more than a thousand minutes a season for my club. Playing so little, I won’t get anywhere.” A thousand minutes. He managed 318 in the league last year.

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Why Iraola Should Sell: The Tactical Case for Cashing In

Sentiment says keep a talented Italian; tactics say sell. Iraola’s 4-2-3-1 is built on relentless wide pressing, vertical sprints and full-throttle transitions — the wide players are the engine room of the system, not luxury attachments. The post-injury Chiesa, whose explosiveness has visibly dulled since his ACL tear at Juventus, no longer profiles as that player. He was signed by a different regime for a different system, and the fit has never materialised.

There is also a squad-planning logic that is hard to argue with. Liverpool are actively monitoring the market for wide reinforcements — we covered their interest in Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma this week — and every minute Chiesa occupies on the wage bill is a minute denied to Ngumoha or Koumas, both of whom fit Iraola’s intensity profile far better. With 18 months left on his deal, January is the last window where Liverpool hold any leverage; by the summer, the fee collapses toward zero.

Then there is the human element, which managers ignore at their peril. Chiesa wants his Italy career back — he has not featured in Roberto Mancini’s squads — and Italy need him firing with a World Cup cycle approaching after the Azzurri missed a third straight tournament. A player who has publicly said he must leave to play will not be a positive dressing-room presence if he is blocked. Sell, wish him well, reinvest.

Inter Milan Fit: The Wing-Back Gamble That Could Backfire

Inter’s interest is the most prestigious and the least convincing. In a 3-5-2, Chiesa would almost certainly be cast as a right wing-back — a role that demands as much defensive discipline and positional restraint as attacking thrust. His engine is willing and his crossing is excellent, but wing-back is a specialist’s craft, and asking a 28-year-old winger to learn it mid-season, in a title race, is a gamble.

The history does not help either. Inter were in for Chiesa in the summer and walked away. When a club passes once and returns six months later, it usually means the player is a fallback, not a priority — and fallbacks rarely get the patience a tactical conversion requires. Our fit score: 6.4 out of 10. The name is glamorous; the role is not his.

Atalanta Fit: Vertical Chaos Made for Chiesa’s Game

Atalanta, by contrast, look tailor-made. Their 3-4-2-1/3-4-3 system is built on verticality: win the ball, break at terrifying speed, attack the half-spaces before the opposition is set. That is Chiesa’s natural habitat. At his best — Fiorentina, the early Juventus years, Euro 2020 — he was a chaos agent: direct running, early shots, defenders backpedalling. Atalanta do not ask their wide forwards to be patient; they ask them to be devastating.

The caveat is intensity. Nobody in Europe trains or presses harder, and Chiesa’s recent injury record — the pre-season muscle problem that wiped out his summer — would be stress-tested immediately. But if his body holds, this is the system most likely to produce the vintage version. Our fit score: 8.1 out of 10.

Lazio Fit: The Natural Right-Wing Home

And then there is Lazio — the most natural fit of all. In a 4-3-3, Chiesa would play as an orthodox right winger: hugging the touchline, isolating the full-back, cutting inside onto his stronger left foot. It is the role he has played his entire career, from Florence to Turin to his best Italy performances. No conversion, no reinvention, no six-week adaptation period. Just a winger, playing as a winger.

There is a compelling secondary logic too. A move to Rome puts Chiesa directly under the nose of the national-team setup as he chases a recall under Mancini, and Lazio’s European ambitions give him the stage his talent still deserves. Of the three suitors, this is the one where he walks into the starting XI on day one and stays there. Our fit score: 8.6 out of 10.

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Verdict: Lazio First, Atalanta Second — Inter a Distant Third

Ranking the three options is straightforward: Lazio’s 4-3-3 gives Chiesa his natural role from day one, Atalanta’s vertical system gives him his best football if his body cooperates, and Inter’s wing-back experiment asks too much of a 28-year-old mid-season. Expect the deal, if it happens, to be a loan with an obligation to buy — the structure that suits a player with 18 months left on his contract and a selling club that just wants the wage bill cleared.

For Liverpool, the decision should be equally straightforward. Chiesa’s Anfield story — even as the club chase the next generation of attacking talent — is a £10m lesson in signing a player without a plan for him. January is the moment to correct it. Let him go to Rome, let him play his thousand minutes, and let both parties finally move on.