Report: LaLiga side line up Liverpool favourite as Plan B if swoop for £34m Man Utd dud fails | OneFootball

One Liverpool player has been earmarked as Plan B for a LaLiga club if they fail to land their main summer transfer target.

There could be a few names cut from Arne Slot’s Premier League-winning squad in the coming weeks, with The Athletic reporting that Anfield chiefs are prepared to entertain offers for Kostas Tsimikas, Darwin Nunez and Federico Chiesa.

The latter has become a firm favourite of the Kop since joining from Juventus last year, as was evidenced during the league title celebrations last month, but his game-time for the entire season was a paltry 466 minutes.

Real Betis eyeing Chiesa as Plan B if Antony bid fails

According to Football Espana, Real Betis have lined up the Liverpool forward as a viable alternative if they’re unsuccessful in their efforts to strike a permanent deal for Antony, who spent the second half of the campaign at the Benito Villamarin on loan from Manchester United.

The Red Devils will demand €40m (£33.9m) if they’re to offload the Brazilian, who enjoyed something of a renaissance with Manuel Pellegrini’s side after a difficult couple of years at Old Trafford, with Gabby Agbonlahor deriding him as a ‘shameless flop‘ who cost £85m in 2022.

Betis have contacted Chiesa’s camp to ask about his situation and would be interested in loaning him in, although the 27-year-old also has admirers from his homeland in AC Milan and Napoli, and he’s set to prioritise whichever club would provide him with the firmest guarantee of game-time.

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Should Liverpool give Chiesa another few months to prove his worth?

If the Liverpool winger is to join the Conference League finalists on loan, he may well be hoping for the sort of revival that Antony enjoyed, with the Man United flop going from scoring four goals in 52 games over an 18-month period at Old Trafford to netting nine times in 26 appearances for Los Verdiblancos.

With the Anfield hierarchy reportedly willing to entertain offers for the Italian, who looks set to have his choice of clubs if he were to move elsewhere this summer, it seems increasingly viable that he could depart Anfield in the coming weeks.

Should that happen, hopefully it’d be on loan rather than permanently, as we still believe that there’s a player of true quality in Chiesa, who at 27 could still have another decade left in his career.

Maybe he just needs a change of scenery to get him firing again if – as Italian journalist Alfredo Pedulla has claimed – his game-time at Liverpool would be even more limited in 2025/26 if he remains at the club.

We’d like to think that the Reds’ number 14 will at least be given a proper chance to impress Slot in pre-season (something he didn’t have at Juventus last summer). After all, Mo Salah will be away at the Africa Cup of Nations at the end of this year, so that right-winger berth will be up for grabs over the festive period!