The Uncomfortable Truth Behind Liverpool’s Glamorous Window
Our take on Liverpool’s summer business keeps circling back to the same nagging point. Marquee arrivals were always going to grab the headlines, but headlines do not win matches in December when the squad is stretched thin and half the group is carrying knocks. That is the reality now facing Andoni Iraola, and it is a reality he did not create for himself. He inherited it the moment the transfer window shut.
Bradley Barcola’s arrival was the kind of statement signing supporters had hoped for, and paired with Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz it gives Liverpool an attacking trio most clubs in Europe would envy. Yet step outside that front three and the picture gets messier fast. Full-back cover is thin, the right side of the attack still looks improvised, and nobody serious around Anfield is pretending otherwise.
A front three that flatters an unfinished squad
We think it is worth separating two questions that keep getting collapsed into one. Did Liverpool sign good players? Clearly, yes. Did they finish the job of building a squad capable of surviving a season with league and cup competitions layered on top of each other? That is far less certain, and it is the second question that actually determines how the campaign goes once the fixture list starts to bite.
Journalist David Lynch, discussing the window recently, pushed back on the idea that the summer was an outright disaster, pointing out Liverpool still have “a lot of good players” and an attack capable of exciting supporters. Fair enough, and we are not about to argue that this is a weak team. But Lynch also flagged the same problem we keep returning to: Iraola wanted more than one winger added to his squad, and only Barcola actually turned up before deadline day passed.
Right-back remains the club’s most avoidable headache
If there is one area where this window’s gaps will actually cost points over a long campaign, we would put money on right-back. Conor Bradley has ability nobody seriously questions, but his injury history is well documented at this stage of his career. Joe Gomez offers experience and composure, though he too has struggled to stay fit for long stretches in recent seasons. Jeremie Frimpong brings electric pace, but it remains genuinely unclear whether he is best deployed at full-back or pushed further forward.
None of that is a knock on any of the individuals involved. It is a squad-planning problem, and it lands squarely on Iraola’s desk despite him not being the one who decided against adding recognised cover there. Lynch put it plainly: the whole approach to right-back “is a worry” right now, and frankly we do not think that assessment is remotely exaggerated given how thin the options look on paper.
Midfield concerns look coachable, defence looks structural
Interestingly, Lynch was far less alarmed about the early wobbles in midfield, suggesting those issues stem from defenders needing to step forward more confidently and the double pivot still learning its responsibilities under a new head coach. We would broadly agree that this is the sort of thing that gets ironed out on the training ground over weeks rather than transfer windows. The full-back situation feels different in kind, not just in degree, because no amount of coaching manufactures a specialist Liverpool did not sign.
Iraola deserves patience the transfer window did not buy him
What strikes us most is how unfair the position is for the head coach specifically. Iraola will field every question about defensive solidity and squad rotation this season, despite recruitment decisions sitting well above his remit as a coach. Lynch called that arrangement completely unfair, and it is hard to disagree when a coach is left to talk around gaps he apparently flagged himself before the window ever shut.
There is a version of this season where none of it matters much. Gakpo adapts comfortably to the right, Bradley and Gomez both stay fit, Frimpong settles into a clearly defined role, and Liverpool’s attacking talent simply papers over every crack that opens up elsewhere. Iraola built a reputation at Bournemouth for solving exactly these kinds of resourcing problems with a fraction of this budget, and there is no obvious reason to assume that knack has suddenly deserted him at a bigger club.
But hoping several fitness and form variables all break the right way at once is not a plan, it is a wish list dressed up as optimism. Our view is simple: Liverpool bought brilliance in one part of the pitch and left their head coach to improvise everywhere else. Whether that gamble pays off will not be decided by anything said in a press conference between now and May. It will be decided by whether Bradley, Gomez and Frimpong can all stay upright and effective at the same time, which is not exactly a bet we would be rushing to place ourselves.