Federico Bernardeschi was supposed to be a big reinforcement for Juventus back in 2017 when the forward was brought in from Fiorentina for a reported fee of €40m (£33.9m), without certain add-ons that could potentially bump that figure up.
During the stint with his former club, the now 25-year-old winger tallied 23 goals and even managed to assist a further 12 in 93 appearances and certainly, he looked like an interesting prospect for the Bianconeri.
But despite a decent transfer price and his youthful potential, Bernardeschi has mostly failed to live up to either of those things.
Fast forward a couple of years and he’s tallied a total of 88 games for Juventus, scoring just nine goals and assisting 11 in the process.
In 2019/20 under Maurizio Sarri, his contribution to the team has gone down once again as the 25-year-old can only boast 928 minutes across 18 games played in all competitions.
With the likes of Paulo Dybala, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gonzalo Higuain as well as Juan Cuadrado in the squad, Bernardeschi has been unable to impose himself properly and as a result, has fallen somewhat down the pecking order – many of his appearances are now from the bench.
Interestingly enough, Calciomercato have reported that Liverpool are observing the situation and for the first time in a long while, the Bianconeri would be open to selling their player.
With all of the above taken into consideration, it feels like it’s the right move from Sarri and since Bernardeschi is still pretty young, it wouldn’t be too late for him to reignite his career away from Turin.
Is Liverpool the right place for him to do exactly that? From the looks of things, hardly so.
Bernardeschi’s figures don’t really suggest he’s a winger of Liverpool’s calibre, especially when compared to the likes of Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane.
The duo are among Reds’ best players, and his move to Anfield would probably just land him on the bench once again.
Who the heck is that?! Can you name all 25 of these obscure Liverpool signings…
Just the fact that both Salah and Mane have outscored the player’s overall Juventus tally in this season already, with 13 goals across all competitions on both of their accounts, says enough about that.
Not to mention that they have now officially sealed the transfer of Takumi Minamino from Red Bull Salzburg and he would potentially be another player ahead in the pecking order and blocking the Italian’s chances of playing regularly.
It’s difficult to see why Jurgen Klopp would even consider this transfer in the first place but if he, for some reason, does exactly that, it would be a blessing for Juventus.
After all, the Italians really have no use for the winger at the moment and the fact Liverpool could find themselves in exactly the same situation isn’t really their problem.
The Serie A club’s focus should be getting some loose change for an increasingly irrelevant player. Liverpool can pick up the pieces if it all goes wrong.
Elsewhere, Barcelona shouldn’t give up on one of their players who are wanted by Manchester City…
