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Having already been tenuously linked with a Liverpool move, news Fiorentina's Giuseppe Rossi wants out in January has the rumour mongers talking. The out of favour striker has also been linked with Real Betis, Genoa, and Bologna.
"The club has realised it cannot keep hold of the lad because he wants to play," the 28-year-old striker’s agent, Federico Pastorello, said when asked about Rossi’s future this week by Ratio Marte. "There is a 99% chance he will leave Fiorentina in January."
A former Manchester United youth player, the American-born Rossi made a name for himself with Villarreal in Spain, where for a time he seemed on the verge of becoming one of Europe’s top strikers. Then, injuries struck, limiting minutes and effectiveness.
After rupturing his ACL in 2011, Rossi missed 116 games and 959 days of action over the next four seasons. There was a lengthy recovery from the initial injury, then a second ACL injury, then a knee injury, and then a string of muscle fatigue injuries.
Now in his fifth season following that initial injury, Rossi has managed to finally stay fit. But he hasn’t looked the player he used to and has struggled for both form and regular minutes. So far, he’s only made nine league appearances and has two assists.
He’s yet to score a goal this season in league play, though he has netted twice in the Europa League. If he were to move to Liverpool, he wouldn’t be able to play for the Reds in Europe. The reality, though, is that he almost certainly isn’t joining Liverpool.
An older player with a lengthy injury list who has struggled to find the back of the goal hardly seems the sort of target the club should be chasing. And the reality for Rossi is that, at this point, the likes of Betis, Genoa, and Bologna are far likelier destinations.
It’s clear Rossi wants to move on from Fiorentina in search of minutes and the possibility he might yet be able to resurrect his badly flagging career. Liverpool wouldn’t offer him that opportunity, and the Rossi of today wouldn’t solve the club’s striker issues.
It would be a shock if the talk of Liverpool—very much an outlier on the list of clubs Rossi is being linked to—was anything other than the work of an agent trying to drum up interest. Hopefully, Rossi can find a new footballing home. It won’t be Anfield.