Iraola's Hard Line on Chiesa and Endo at Liverpool
Andoni Iraola has wasted no time showing where the new lines of power run at Liverpool.
Before a ball has been kicked in Europe under his watch, the Spaniard has left Federico Chiesa and Wataru Endo out of his 2026-27 Champions League squad, a ruthless early call that cuts straight through reputation and sentiment.
Iraola draws a hard line
Liverpool submitted their 25-man List A to UEFA ahead of their European opener against Atletico Madrid on September 9. Chiesa and Endo, both full internationals, both on long contracts, are nowhere to be seen.
This is not a clerical oversight. It is a choice.
UEFA rules allow only 17 non-locally trained players on List A. Iraola has ring-fenced those slots for the £123 million signing Bradley Barcola, fellow summer recruit Victor Munoz, and even injured forward Hugo Ekitike. Chiesa and Endo are the ones squeezed out.
When a manager protects a long-term absentee and an untested newcomer ahead of a near-fit Italy international and a senior Japan midfielder, the message is unmistakable: they are not central to the plan.
Carragher’s blunt verdict
Jamie Carragher did not bother softening the edges.
Speaking on The Overlap, the former Liverpool defender cut straight to the point about where Chiesa and Endo now sit in the Anfield hierarchy.
“Liverpool have got two players in the squad who are never going to play,” he said. “And there are all these quotas, you can only have 17 players and all that. They have got Chiesa and Endo. It’s like they are never going to kick a ball.”
The Sky Sports pundit then zeroed in on the decision to keep Endo this summer.
“Endo should have been moved on,” he added. “He has done great, a bit of a cult hero.”
Cult status, though, does not win you a Champions League place under a new manager with a strict tactical blueprint.
Reputations on the slide
Both players are still tied to Liverpool for the long term — Endo until 2027, Chiesa until 2028 — but their trajectories have been heading the wrong way.
Endo’s influence evaporated last season. He made just eight Premier League appearances and featured only once in the Champions League. For a player once trusted to steady the midfield, that kind of drop-off rarely reverses under a new, demanding coach.
Chiesa’s story has been even more frustrating. His Liverpool career has been punctured by fitness issues, every promising spell cut short. Now 28, he is again sidelined with a muscle injury. The current problem is not considered long term, yet that has not spared him from the chop.
Iraola has chosen to register long-term absentees like Conor Bradley and Giovanni Leoni ahead of him. That is not just a nod to future planning. It underlines how far Chiesa has slipped from the centre of the project.
Europe moves on without them
Liverpool’s immediate focus is a domestic test against Ipswich Town on Friday, but the real glare arrives when Atletico Madrid walk out at Anfield to start a demanding league-phase campaign. Trips to Inter and Fenerbahce lurk on the schedule, the kind of nights players dream about.
Chiesa and Endo will be watching those dreams from the outside.
For now, their opportunities look confined to domestic cups and whatever Premier League minutes Iraola is prepared to drip-feed. Only a severe injury crisis — and the scope for a permitted squad alteration later in the competition — offers any realistic route back into Europe this season.
This is what a reset looks like under a new manager: harsh, uncompromising, and crystal clear. The question now is whether Chiesa and Endo can fight their way back into the picture, or whether this Champions League snub marks the beginning of the end for their Liverpool careers.
