Bradley Barcola seems the only thing certain in a transfer window full of uncertainty for Liverpool, and more chaos could yet unfold…
BRADLEY Barcola, then.
A player to be genuinely excited about. Never enough to justify things like tracking flights, but big enough to cast an anxious phone glance as you wonder if it’s progressed any further.
Some transfers feel so convoluted and inevitable that they can be, and are, taken for granted. It’s only when the wheels start turning do you realise the magnitude of the deal struck.
Liverpool have (hopefully) landed a serial winner. Players usually arrive with the ambition of achieving things like Champions League success. This fella has won it consecutively in the last two years.
Barcola has been the model incoming player. He’s sat tight, held his nerve and seemingly insisted on Liverpool all summer.
Which begs an intriguing question: why?
Arsenal were reportedly interested and possibly many others just didn’t bother with a pursuit given his preference of Anfield.
Barcola didn’t sit back and wait for the best offer or move to a club who, despite some supporter narcissism, won the Premier League and reached a Champions League final last season.
He has been adamant on Liverpool as a project, a project which is more infantile and less certain than it has been in over a decade.
Even the Sporting Director, who likely led on the deal, is on the way out.
The current state of Liverpool might be its own sell for Barcola; a player who, despite his achievements, remains very coachable and can massively improve his game.
At 23 years old, he may see Andoni Iraola as the perfect coach to enhance his output, defending and positional play.
There is also a void for new heroes at Anfield. Barcola will be the biggest addition of the summer and we’ll look to him to provide the kind of attacking razzamatazz we were used to from 2017 to 2025.
There’s a chance to write a new chapter and for a new wave of adoration to be given to this new-look Liverpool. Barcola might have sniffed an opportunity to be that player.
While it’s clear the club can still pull off transfers with such clout as Barcola, they sometimes seem more unrecognisable than ever when it comes to player recruitment and squad building.
The links to Ismaila Sarr and persistent rumbles of a Cody Gakpo exit show that transfer inaction doesn’t represent competence in the way it perhaps once did.
Sarr is a fascinating link. The lack of substance suggests it could be the stalking horse for Yankuba Minteh to begin a rebellion at Brighton & Hove Albion. It could also be that Sarr is the smart play to cover number nine and 10 when Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz inevitably need resting.
Regardless, the optics are outweighing the motives right now, with many seeing Sarr as a player The Reds could’ve made a priority at any point since 2019 (when he actually played as a winger) but haven’t.
The Gakpo sale represents a burning of heads from last season which everyone might just be best moving on from.
In this sense, I expect both Gakpo and Alexis Mac Allister to leave Liverpool in the next 12 months. This isn’t a massive deal. Teams are built much more around three-year cycles than five these days. In lots of ways, Liverpool’s values have been too purist recently.
What wouldn’t make sense is Liverpool bringing in two players only to sanction Gakpo’s sale.
We watched last season as gaps were left in wide areas and centre back, and it cost us massively.
The evidence around giving Luis Diaz the contract he was seeking has been increasing since the day he left.
We also viewed the reality facing Rio Ngumoha’s development path last Sunday. He isn’t and shouldn’t be a starter for Liverpool right now.
All of it, like everything else at the club, gives a whiff of a divorced parent entering middle-aged rebellion.
In the middle of everything currently is the honest and methodical figure of Andoni Iraola, a modern day literal iteration of Rafa Benitez’s “I am focused on training and coaching my team,” line which was once repeated 15 times during the same press conference.
Iraola has been frank about the want and expectation for new players, but also exudes the air of a man who wants September 2nd to arrive so he knows what he’s dealing with.
He won’t be unhappy at the gift-wrapped Barcola currently awaiting shipping from Paris, but quietly might be less impressed and more confused by the emerging and continued Sarr and Gakpo links.
He isn’t the only one. On this issue, the head coach and supporters are most definitely aligned.
Surprises and plot-thickeners abound in the final days of this transfer chaos.
Liverpool may be busy, but whether any future moves represent part of a greater plan is massively uncertain.
