They were separated by 264 days. December brought the outburst that ought to have accelerated Liverpool’s search for a winger. Almost nine months later came the news they had reached an agreement in principle to buy Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain.
Perhaps replacing Mohamed Salah was always going to be hard. Liverpool’s summer in the transfer market has certainly made it look so; the advance warning they had from the moment at Leeds when the Egyptian said he had been “thrown under the bus” and accused the club of breaking their promises to him should have given them a headstart. The subsequent rapprochement only had a temporary feel; it gave Liverpool months to find a successor.
And perhaps they still have not, and not merely because Barcola has yet to complete a medical. He is more of a left winger. But at an initial cost of just over £100m, potentially rising to £120m, he will be the flagship recruit on the flanks. Liverpool have already recruited a winger this summer, the rather cheaper Victor Munoz, whose debut as a substitute at Newcastle came in Salah’s old spot on the right. They also appointed a manager whose gameplan requires wingers, in Andoni Iraola.
The Basque has had to be patient. He hopes Barcola will prove worth the wait. “I definitely would have preferred to have the wingers ready on the first day,” Iraola said. “The same for every position. But I understand that it’s not easy in the market and the wingers that we are trying to sign, they are of a high level. They are wanted by a lot of clubs, and I think it’s very difficult also for the club to close those situations. But as long as we arrive at the right place at the end and we sign the right players, I think it would be worth it even if they haven’t been with us in pre-season.”
Liverpool could not close the situation, to use Iraola’s phrase, with Yan Diomande, who seemed to be their first choice. They submitted an offer worth up to £86m. The Ivorian instead left RB Leipzig for Real Madrid for £115m.
That was an indication of the inflation in prices on the wings; Salah came for just £36.5m, a sum that soon seemed a bargain. Yet the £100m winger is a far more recent development and Chelsea’s decision to pay £117m for Morgan Rogers may not have helped Liverpool’s cause. PSG had quoted them £145m for Barcola, leading to an impasse before they made a breakthrough in negotiations.
Liverpool have been saving their budget for wingers. The challenge was to find the right one. They have also submitted two bids for Brighton’s Yankuba Minteh and shown an interest in Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr, both of whom, unlike Barcola, tend to play on the right.
Common denominators between the various targets would seem to include pace and an ability to run at defenders. Iraola outlined his requirements. He explained: “We need wingers who can make the difference, who can be the man who can make the difference in isolation, who can attack the spaces, who can also do the defensive work that we are going to demand from them in terms of pressing or sometimes following the full-backs. And also if they can provide numbers then it’s perfect.”
Maybe no one could match Salah’s numbers, given that he scored 257 goals for Liverpool, but they need someone to chalk up some sizeable figures. Barcola got 11 in Ligue 1 last season, at an average of one every 159 minutes. In all competitions in Paris Saint-Germain’s marathon season of 2024-25, he recorded 21 goals and a further 21 assists. He finished the recent World Cup with three goals.
The model may be a winger Liverpool liked, but did not bid for in January when he moved to Manchester City. Then Antoine Semenyo’s £62.5m cost seemed a lot, but he had scored two goals against them at Anfield last August. He got 11 goals and five assists in the Premier League in 2024-25, 10 goals and a further three assists in the first half of last season. They were for a Bournemouth team managed by Iraola.
That Semenyo has largely operated on the right for City may make Iraola wish Liverpool had been the January buyers. Barcola has, however, been on his new club’s radar for years; he impressed against Liverpool in Dubai in a friendly with Lyon during the 2022 World Cup.
He was displaced from the PSG front three by Desire Doue, but Liverpool can look back a decade, to the arrivals of Sadio Mane and Salah, to find wingers who reached a different level at Anfield. They left a legacy, but also the question of who can live up to the standards they set. Or, indeed, do everything Iraola wants. “It is difficult to find someone who can tick all the boxes, but it is what we are trying to do,” he said. And he must hope Barcola can be Liverpool’s new box ticker.
