Barcola Admiration Is Not a Plan, and Liverpool Cannot Afford Another Summer of Just Watching
Pre-season always brings a certain optimism, but this year it feels sharper than usual. Andoni Iraola is now in charge of his first Liverpool squad, the non-internationals are back on the training pitches, and the club is preparing for a U.S. tour that will double as an early public test of what this rebuild looks like. Underneath the routine of pre-season photos and gentle updates, though, sits a far more pressing question. Liverpool have lost their most productive attacker in a generation, and right now the plan to replace him is still, by the club’s own signalling, a work in progress. Supporters have had all summer to sit with that reality, and patience is understandably starting to wear thin the closer the fixtures get.
Wide Areas Remain the Real Test
There is no mystery about where Liverpool’s priority sits. Every strand of the current reporting points to the same conclusion: whatever business gets done before the season starts, it needs to happen out wide. That much has been obvious since Mohamed Salah’s departure was confirmed, and it would be a genuine surprise if it were not still top of Iraola’s list heading into August.
According to The Athletic, Bradley Barcola continues to be the name Liverpool are most drawn to, with Paris Saint-Germain’s forward described as a player the club would love to bring in and one they are still actively tracking. It is easy to see the appeal. Barcola offers pace, directness and the kind of one-on-one threat that can unsettle a low block in a different way to how Salah used to break teams down. He would not be a like-for-like replacement, nobody realistically could be, but he fits the profile of a forward who can immediately change the tempo of an attack.
The trouble is that admiration and execution are two very different things. Liverpool watching a player closely is not news in itself, and PSG are not exactly known for letting talented, in-demand forwards go cheaply or quickly. If this interest is as advanced as it is being made to sound, supporters will want to see it translate into an actual approach soon, rather than another summer spent monitoring situations from a distance while rivals move first.
Szoboszlai’s New Deal Buys Iraola Breathing Room
Not every important piece of business this summer needs to involve a new arrival, and Liverpool have quietly ticked off one of the more significant ones already. Dominik Szoboszlai putting pen to paper on a new contract closes the door on months of speculation about his long-term future, and it is exactly the sort of decision that should have happened without much fuss attached to it.
Szoboszlai has become one of the more complete midfielders in the squad, comfortable carrying the ball into dangerous areas and equally happy doing the unglamorous defensive work that keeps a midfield honest. Securing him removes one variable from an already complicated summer and hands Iraola a settled, versatile presence to build his engine room around while everything else in the squad is still shifting.
Curtis Jones and the Contract Clock
If Szoboszlai represents the stability column, Curtis Jones sits firmly in the uncertainty one. Inter remain keen admirers and have already tested Liverpool’s resolve once, only for the club to knock back an offer worth in the region of £21 million earlier this month. Iraola, by all accounts, wants to keep hold of him, which should offer some reassurance to supporters who rate Jones as more than just squad depth.
Reassurance only goes so far, though, when the calendar is working against you. Jones enters the final year of his current deal, and Liverpool have been here before with academy graduates allowed to run down contracts before eventually leaving for reduced fees or, worse, for nothing at all. A homegrown, tactically adaptable midfielder reaching this stage of a contract without resolution is not a minor administrative footnote. It is exactly the kind of situation that needs sorting out this summer, one way or another, rather than being left to fester into next year’s crisis. Every year this scenario repeats itself, the club’s recruitment planning looks a little less coherent, and the excuses get harder to accept.
Our View
None of this is complicated to diagnose. Liverpool need proven end product out wide, they need Iraola settled with clarity around his midfield, and they need to stop letting homegrown players drift into their final contract year without a plan. The Szoboszlai situation shows the club can move decisively when it wants to. The open questions around Barcola and Jones show there is still plenty of work left before anyone can call this window a success.
Barcola is an exciting name, genuinely so, but Liverpool fans have watched plenty of dream links fail to materialise over the years. Wanting a player is the easy part. If the interest is as real as it sounds, the next step has to be an actual move, not another few weeks of quiet monitoring while other clubs get their business done. Iraola deserves credit for a calm start, and the goodwill around him is well earned. But goodwill only survives so many transfer windows spent admiring problems instead of solving them. Liverpool need pace, they need certainty over Jones, and they need it now, not once the season is already under way.