Liverpool's Right-Wing Riddle: Iraola's Strategy Post-Salah
Liverpool’s right-wing riddle: Why Iraola is refusing a quick-fix ‘new Salah
Bradley Barcola did not arrive quietly. £123 million pulled him out of Paris Saint-Germain and dropped him onto Merseyside as Liverpool’s marquee signing of the summer, a Champions League winner tasked with helping to move the club into its post-Mohamed Salah era.
There’s just one problem. He prefers the left.
So do Cody Gakpo, Rio Ngumoha and Victor Munoz. Four gifted forwards, all at their best drifting in from the same side of the pitch. Andoni Iraola has spent the opening weeks of the season shuffling pieces across his front line, trying to plug the gaping hole left by a 257-goal phenomenon who made the right flank his own.
The temptation to buy a ready-made replacement was obvious. Liverpool looked. Hard.
Minteh, Sarr… and a firm “not at any price”
Yankuba Minteh at Brighton. Ismaila Sarr at Crystal Palace. Both were identified as natural right-sided options, both the subject of bids, both ultimately out of reach.
Domestic rivals held their ground. Liverpool refused to be dragged into a bidding war.
Rather than lurch to options C, D or E, the club took a breath. They chose to ride out the first half of the season with what they already had and revisit the situation in January. For now, that restraint is seen inside the club as a strength, not a weakness.
Former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy, speaking to GOAL courtesy of Snabbare, sees the logic in that stance.
“I think there were a lot of rumours around trying to get Minteh and Sarr in, who are obviously more right-sided players, so they're obviously aware of it,” Murphy said, pointing straight at the imbalance in Iraola’s forward line.
“But I think, as a football club, there's something to be said for not buying somebody or getting somebody just to fill. If you've already got talented, intelligent footballers there, who can play that side - because I've seen Barcola play off the right, I think Gakpo's got the intelligence to do it, I think he'll score goals from there. He got a great assist from there, actually, I think in the Forest game from the right side.”
The message is clear: better no signing than the wrong signing.
“So they probably looked at what they already had when they couldn't get Sarr or Minteh and thought, ‘you know what, let's not rush and get someone in who doesn't quite fit the criteria’. So I understand it.
“You don't always get what you want in a window. You can't be held to ransom and pay over the odds for players just because you desperately need them, because they've spent a lot of money.
“So in an ideal world you'd want a more orthodox right-sided player, I agree with that, but ultimately do I think they've got enough for now in Munoz, who's shown glimpses on that side, and Gakpo can play that side and even Barcola? I think they've got enough.”
Left-footers on the right – making it work
Iraola has wasted no time testing that theory.
Gakpo, Ngumoha, Munoz and Barcola have all seen minutes on the right in the early weeks of the 2026-27 season. It has not always been smooth, but it has been effective.
The best example came at Bournemouth. Gakpo, stationed wide on the right, exploded down the touchline and drove a low ball into the box. Alexander Isak met it and finished. Liverpool took the points. A left-sided forward, repurposed, decided the game from Salah’s old territory.
Those are the moments that strengthen the club’s belief that the solution, at least for now, can come from within.
Unbeaten – and in no rush for a ‘new Salah’
The bigger picture backs that up. Liverpool are unbeaten across the Premier League, Champions League and Carabao Cup this season. The attack is still evolving, the patterns are still forming, but the results are already there.
Interest in Minteh and Sarr has not vanished. It may flare up again in January or next summer, with both players understood to be keen on a move to Anfield. That door remains open.
What has changed is the urgency. Liverpool are not scrambling. They are not throwing fees at the first available right winger simply to soothe the optics of life after Salah.
For now, Iraola will keep bending his left-wingers into right-sided roles, trusting their intelligence and versatility while the club waits for the right opportunity rather than just the next one.
If the wins keep coming and the unbeaten run stretches on, the real question might not be “Who replaces Salah?” It might be whether Liverpool even need a like-for-like successor at all.
