Liverpool's Transfer Dilemma: Barcola vs Gakpo

Liverpool’s summer of upheaval was meant to be decisive. Instead, as the transfer window ticks towards its final month, Anfield feels stuck between eras.

The expectation back in early summer was clear: a major reset. A squad that had creaked in key areas, a new manager in Arne Slot, and a fanbase braced for bold surgery rather than gentle tinkering. Several positions screamed for upgrades. The rebuild narrative wrote itself.

It has not played out that way.

Pieces have moved, of course. The most seismic: Mohamed Salah, the man who defined Liverpool’s right flank for a generation, now belongs to Trabzonspor. Hugo Ekitike is sidelined until at least January. The attack, once the club’s great certainty, suddenly looks like the most delicate part of the structure.

And yet Liverpool find themselves circling a different kind of deal.

Barcola over Gakpo?

The club’s search for firepower has thrown up a curious pattern. The links keep coming, but most of the names are left-wingers, not natural right-sided forwards in the Salah mould. In the modern game that isn’t a fatal flaw – versatility rules the market now – but if you want someone to walk straight into Salah’s old corridor and deliver, you usually look for a specialist.

Liverpool are not. At least not with Bradley Barcola.

If the Reds manage to prise Barcola away from PSG, the plan is not to drop him into Salah’s vacant role. As reported by Anfield Sector on X, Barcola is being lined up to play on the left. The message is blunt: he would arrive ahead of Cody Gakpo in the pecking order.

That alone is a statement. Gakpo spent the 2024-25 campaign as one of Liverpool’s most effective forwards, jousting with Luis Diaz for the starting berth on the left and putting together arguably his best season in red. He looked settled. Important. A cornerstone for the next phase.

Then came 2025-26.

With Diaz out of the picture early on, Gakpo began the season as Liverpool’s only recognised left-winger. It should have been his platform. Instead, his form nosedived. The sharpness went. The conviction went with it. Across most of the campaign he struggled, badly enough that sections of the fanbase began clamouring for teenager Rio Ngumoha to take his place.

Slot eventually listened. Ngumoha was handed starts, and from that point the idea of Gakpo as an automatic starter on the left evaporated. So did the notion that Liverpool were set on that side of the pitch.

A different level

Once that door opened, the rumours followed. A queue of left-sided attackers were linked. Among them, one name stood out: Bradley Barcola.

On numbers alone, the 21-year-old makes a compelling case. Last season he contributed to 20 goals across all competitions, a return that underlines both end product and consistency. Just as important for a coach like Slot, he did it while operating across the entire front three. Left, right, central – Barcola has done each job and done it well.

That flexibility immediately marks him out as a more adaptable option than Gakpo, whose best work has largely come from the left and who has never truly convinced as a permanent solution elsewhere in the front line.

The problem, as ever, is price. Negotiations with PSG are described as slow, with the French club’s hierarchy currently refusing to budge from a valuation north of €150m. It is a figure that would test even a club of Liverpool’s stature and one that forces hard questions about priorities in a squad that still needs a true Salah successor on the right.

Yet the logic behind the pursuit is hard to ignore. Barcola represents an upgrade in dynamism, output and positional range. In a straight comparison with Gakpo, the Frenchman offers more weapons and a higher ceiling.

Which is why, if Liverpool find a way to structure a deal and effectively swap Gakpo for Barcola, the move will say something powerful about where this team is heading under Slot.

It would not just be another transfer. It would be a ruthless call on a player who once looked central to the project, and a clear signal that Liverpool intend to rebuild their attack around a different profile of forward.

The question now is simple: do they have the conviction – and the cash – to push it over the line before this window closes?