Liverpool's striker crisis opens a path back for Chiesa
With Isak, Ekitike and Gakpo all unavailable, Arne Iraola has signalled Federico Chiesa could get his first minutes of the season against Manchester City.
Liverpool go into Sunday's Premier League meeting with Manchester City without a single fit senior centre-forward, and head coach Arne Iraola has suggested Federico Chiesa may be asked to fill the gap despite having played no minutes at all in 2026-27.
Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike and Cody Gakpo are all unavailable, according to Football Italia. That leaves Iraola with Koumas as his only recognised number nine, a problem he addressed directly in his pre-match press conference on Friday.
"Even before [the injuries to Isak and Gakpo], we don't have Hugo Ekitike, another very good centre-forward I'm looking forward to having available," Iraola said. "We don't have Hugo, we don't have Alex."
Three senior forwards sidelined at once
Losing three centre-forwards in the same week is less a selection headache than a structural one. Liverpool's attacking buildup this season has been designed around runners in behind and a focal point who can hold the ball under pressure from deep deliveries, which is precisely the job Isak, Ekitike and Gakpo have shared between them.
Without any of the three, Iraola is forced to either play Koumas as an isolated spearhead or restructure the forward line entirely around players who were not bought, or developed, to lead the line.
That second option is where Chiesa enters the conversation, not because he is a traditional replacement for an injured striker but because his career has included spells playing further forward than his usual wide position.
Chiesa's profile offers a makeshift solution
Chiesa has not featured for Liverpool at all this season because of a muscular injury, but Iraola confirmed the Italian has used the international break to build towards a return. "We will maybe recover Fede Chiesa, but he hasn't played any minutes, he's recovering from an injury, but he has been doing a good job in the international break, he's been training with the small group we had," Iraola said.
The caveat is significant. Training form is not match sharpness, and Iraola was careful to frame Chiesa's involvement as a possibility rather than a certainty, given he has had no competitive minutes to test the injury.
What makes Chiesa relevant in this specific crisis is not his fitness alone but his positional history. He has played as a central forward for both Juventus and Italy, giving Iraola a wide player capable of occupying the central channels rather than simply overloading the flanks.
"A pure no.9, it's true that we probably only have Koumas right now, but we have some other options," Iraola said. "We have some wingers who have played up front in other teams."
That phrasing points to a tactical workaround rather than a direct swap. Rather than searching for a like-for-like replacement for Isak or Ekitike, Iraola appears ready to use width as a substitute for a fixed central presence, with Chiesa potentially drifting inside from a wide starting position to combine with Koumas or operate as the central reference point himself.
What it means for Sunday's XI against Manchester City
Facing Manchester City without any specialist centre-forward other than Koumas is a demanding way to trial a reshaped attack, and it says something about the scale of Liverpool's absentee list that Iraola is openly discussing wingers filling in centrally rather than treating it as an emergency measure to be avoided.
Iraola said he expects to field a team capable of competing regardless of the makeshift nature of the forward line, a sign that the plan is not merely to survive the fixture but to find a workable structure while Isak, Ekitike and Gakpo recover.
Chiesa's return, even in a wide or hybrid role rather than as a central striker, would still represent his first involvement of the season and a meaningful boost to a squad that currently has only one fit recognised number nine.
The fixture against Manchester City will offer the first real test of whether this improvised front line can function, with Iraola's comments suggesting Liverpool's attacking solution for now lies in repurposing wide players rather than waiting for their strikers to return.