By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-08-06 12:05:15 | Updated at 2026-08-06 15:09:03
3 hours ago
With Liverpool reportedly in negotiations with Paris Saint-Germain for Bradley Barcola, we look at why the Reds are seemingly going big to bag the winger.
It’s a new dawn at Anfield.
Liverpool head into the 2026-27 season in a post-Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson, Ibrahima Konaté and Arne Slot world.
With Andoni Iraola installed as head coach, everything seemed set for the Reds to start bringing in players to give the former Bournemouth boss plenty to work with.
However, as of early August, the only summer signing has been Víctor Muñoz from Osasuna. Jérémy Jacquet, a January purchase, has also arrived, but due to the World Cup and injury respectively, neither have yet made an appearance in pre-season for their new club.
That new start isn’t feeling all that fresh at the moment. The one potential remedy, though, is a big attacking signing to somewhat fill the void left by Salah’s departure.
For a while, it seemed that man would be Yan Diomande, until the Ivorian winger decided he wanted to join Paris Saint-Germain instead, before another apparent change of heart seemingly has him heading to Real Madrid.
Another long-term target does appear to want to join Liverpool, though. Bradley Barcola was strongly linked with a move to Anfield last summer, and even that was after a couple of years of whispers that the club were looking at him.
Barcola has spent the last three seasons at PSG, winning three Ligue 1 titles, two Coupe de France crowns, and two UEFA Champions Leagues.
However, he reportedly wants a new challenge and is unwilling to sign a new deal in Paris. With just two years left on his contract, Liverpool are apparently hoping to bring Barcola to the Premier League this summer.
Would he be an ideal Salah replacement, though?
In short, no, particularly because, while he has occasionally played on the right of the attack, where Salah caused so much damage in his nine years at Liverpool, Barcola is stronger on the left.
Since joining PSG in 2023, he has played 77% of his minutes on the left of the attack, and 13% on the right. Iraola did recently state he wants his wingers to be versatile and able to play both sides, which Barcola certainly can do, but you would assume given the reported nine-figure fee it will take to bring him to Merseyside, the plan will be to mostly play him on the left.
That may seem like a strange move for Liverpool, who already have Cody Gakpo and talented teenager Rio Ngumoha on the left, while Muñoz can also play there. Gakpo has been linked with a move to Tottenham this summer, however.
Barcola is right footed, taking 71 shots with his favoured foot in all competitions for PSG last season. He did attempt 23 with his left, though, with three of his 13 goals coming from that boot, so he’s not entirely reliant on his right.
The 23-year-old began his career with Lyon, enjoying a breakout season in 2022-23 when he recorded seven goals and nine assists in 31 games, though only 20 of those were starts.
He also scored and played impressively against Liverpool in a friendly in Dubai during the mid-season break for the World Cup in December 2022, which may be when the club’s interest was initially piqued.
PSG signed him for a reported €45 million just a few months later in the summer of 2023. Barcola managed five goals and nine assists in 39 games during his first season in the French capital, but it was the following campaign when he really came into his own.
Barcola played 58 games in all competitions for PSG in 2024-25. Of all players from Europe’s top five leagues, only Federico Valverde and Pedri (both 59) played more.
Not only was he busy in terms of playing games, but he also produced the goods with 21 goals and 18 assists. Of players from Europe’s top five leagues, only eight managed more than his 39 goal involvements.
A ‘big chance’ is an opportunity from which a player would reasonably be expected to score, and Barcola created 27 of them in 2024-25 across all competitions (only eight players tallied more), while he had 51 big chances himself, showing how often he was able to get into dangerous positions.
Again, only eight players had more, and it was only four fewer than Salah had (55) in what was an epic 34-goal season for Liverpool’s ‘Egyptian King’.
Barcola wasn’t as productive last term. He still played a big part in PSG retaining their Ligue 1 and UEFA Champions League crowns, but he only managed 19 goal involvements (excluding the FIFA Club World Cup), with 13 goals and six assists in all competitions.
Didier Deschamps is a fan, and Barcola started four of France’s eight games at the World Cup this summer, coming off the bench in the other four. He managed three goals and an assist as Les Bleus had to settle for fourth place in North America.
But beyond his top-line numbers, among the most striking aspects of Barcola are his pace and desire to run with the ball. He can be a real nuisance for full-backs.
Barcola attempted 4.7 dribbles per 90 in all competitions last season: only Désiré Doué (5.8), Ibrahim Mbaye (5.5) and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (4.9) averaged more for PSG. Barcola’s success rate of 37.2% was lower than those three, though.
Only Ngumoha (7.7) attempted more dribbles per 90 for Liverpool last season, though that was from significantly fewer minutes, while no Bournemouth players averaged more than 4.0 dribbles per 90 (min. 10 games).
At the World Cup, he had more success. He completed 13 of 25 dribbles, and his success rate of 52% was the best of any French player to attempt at least four dribbles, though it was obviously from a fairly small sample.
Dribbling metrics are often illustrative of a player’s ability in tight spaces; Iraola likes his wingers to be useful in transition and carrying the ball upfield into open spaces. With his pace, carrying (where a carry is a movement of at least 5m with the ball) is perhaps a little more relevant to Barcola than his quality in close quarters.
For instance, last season he averaged 0.9 chance-creating carries and 1.6 shot-ending carries per 90, both the most of any PSG player (min. 1,000 minutes), highlighting his ability to be a threat while moving at pace.
He also makes dangerous runs off the ball. In the Champions League last season, Barcola made 109 runs in behind while PSG were in possession: only four players made more in the competition, and it was at least 28 more than any other PSG player.
Those made up 50.2% of Barcola’s total off-ball runs when his team were in possession. Salah also made 109 runs in behind in the Champions League for Liverpool (though from 302 fewer minutes), which made up 51.9% of his total runs, so that could be an aspect of his game Barcola may help replace.
Barcola also creates chances for others, which will be music to the ears of Alexander Isak if the Frenchman joins him at Anfield. No PSG player created as many chances from open play as his 72 last season in all competitions.
He does drop behind Ousmane Dembélé (2.54) and Lee Kang-in (2.39) on a per-90 basis with 2.18, but that still represents a fairly reliable stream of opportunities. Only Ngumoha (2.46) and Florian Wirtz (2.44) created more per 90 for Liverpool in all competitions last season.
Another part of his makeup that ought to appeal to Iraola, who always wants his team defending aggressively from the front, is Barcola’s ability to win the ball high up the pitch. Only Vitinha (36) won possession in the final third more often than Barcola (30) for PSG last season, and when looking at it per 90, his 0.91 was just behind Mbaye (1.09), Doué (0.95) and Senny Mayulu (0.94).
That was more than any Liverpool player last season (min. three games played), even if they didn’t press as aggressively as PSG under Slot. Iraola’s Bournemouth did, though, with the only Cherries pair to win possession in the final third more often than Barcola last season being Junior Kroupi (1.13) and Justin Kluivert (0.97).
He’s a reliable attacking threat, and he works hard, making him seemingly an ideal combination for a coach like Luis Enrique. So, why are PSG considering sanctioning a sale, then?
Well, there is a narrative that Barcola wants to leave PSG in search of regular football. Actually, only two players made more appearances for the European champions last season (49), while Barcola totalled more minutes in all competitions (2,970 excluding stoppage time) than all other PSG forwards.
The issue is more that when it came to the biggest games, he often found himself on the bench, with Kvaratskhelia and Doué generally preferred on the wings by Luis Enrique.
Barcola didn’t start any Champions League games after the last-16 win over Chelsea, despite having scored in both legs against the Blues. Across the campaign, he only completed 90 minutes eight times, and just once in the UCL.
One thing Barcola has been criticised for is his lack of killer instinct in front of goal. Across the last two seasons, Barcola has just a 28.7% conversion rate (25/87) when it comes to big chances; that’s the worst of the 25 players who had at least 60 big chances, though it should be noted that Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise, one of the most highly rated players on the planet, had a worse conversion rate (27.6%) in that time, scoring just 16 of his 58 big chances.
Looking at his overall finishing record in the last two seasons, Barcola converted 15.6% of his shots. Of the 101 players from Europe’s top five leagues with at least 150 shots in all competitions in that time, 38 had a better finishing percentage, with Barcola above Hugo Ekitiké (14.3%), Olise (13.7%), Morgan Rogers (13.5%), Jude Bellingham (13.1%) and Vinícius Júnior (13.0%). He also outranked teammates Doué (12.9%) and Kvaratskhelia (12.7%). It could therefore be that big chances are just a bit too simple for Barcola, because overall his finishing appears to be broadly fine.
Having said that, he did underperform his expected goals (xG) slightly across the last two seasons, with 34 goals in that time coming from shots totalling 38.4 xG. Only Dembélé (44.1) had a higher individual xG for the European champions in that time, though, so Barcola was getting plenty of chances; with a bit more composure (and luck?), we may see him posting some impressive numbers in future.
After all, his output is already comparable to some esteemed names.
The Opta Player Radars uses key metrics to compare players across Europe’s top five leagues, so it allows us to find wingers whose output was similar to Barcola last season.
According to our radars, the two players who were closest to his numbers were players Barcola could be seen as a ‘replacement’ for: former Liverpool stars Luis Díaz and Salah. The next two most similar players were Lamine Yamal and Vinícius. Not bad company to be keeping.
Is he worth over £100m? Is anyone? Reported arguments from France that the fees for Elliot Anderson to Manchester City and Morgan Rogers to Chelsea this summer have ‘set the bar’ don’t really stand up to scrutiny given those players were probably their respective team’s crown jewel, whereas Barcola seemingly wants to leave because he’s not seen as a key player by Luis Enrique.
Barcola is undeniably a big talent, so will cost a large sum, but pigeonholing him as Salah’s replacement would be overly simple, especially as he’s likely to predominantly play on the left.
If Liverpool are able to field Wirtz, Isak and Barcola, Iraola will expect them all and others to provide the goals and creativity lost in Salah’s absence.
Barcola would simply be the next exciting addition at Anfield, and given Iraola’s ability to get the best out of wingers in his time at Bournemouth, the sky really could be the limit should the Frenchman end up in the Premier League.
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