Bradley Barcola has had a quiet start to his Liverpool career, albeit he is only six games into it. Against Manchester City, he was in between things really. When he got in one-on-ones, you’d expect him to go past the fullback, but he didn’t go past him too many times, unfortunately, but he did a couple of really good things.
Pressure mounts on big-money signings
But when you’ve bought three players for over £100m each - Alexander Isak has been injured for almost all of his Liverpool career, Florian Wirtz is under the microscope and Barcola now is too. The French league is far worse than the Bundesliga and he’s going to be double up on - there are a few players that have bought that you’d like to think are going to make the difference for us.
Isak has done well so far this year; hopefully, he can come back and start scoring goals again. Ultimately, Liverpool need to score more goals. I think some of it comes down to the formation. It just doesn’t seem to be right.
Goal-scoring concerns and the manager's future
If Florian Wirtz is playing well and he’s creating goals and scoring goals then things would look a lot better. It’s something he has to do, the position that he’s in. He’s got to be scoring a goal every three or four games.
Dominik Szoboszlai scores goals. But where are the other goals coming from? Barcola? Not yet. Isak, if he’s fit. Young Lewis Koumas is just starting off his career. Victor Munoz has looked lively, he can get a few goals.
When he used to have Luis Diaz, Mohamed Salah, Bobby Firmino - the goals were coming from everywhere. Now it’s a problem. But we are a team in transition.
The manager needs to be given two years. He only wanted a two-year contract and if it doesn’t work, he’ll walk. If he doesn’t work he’ll get a new contract, such is the Basque way. For that reason, he warrants a couple of transfer windows at least.
January window could be huge
I think January will be a big transfer window for us. We’ve got to rebuild. Salah has gone, big Virgil van Dijk could be going [at the end of the season]. Now’s just the start.
A lot of this comes down to the scouting staff. You look at what Brighton and Brentford have done, Bournemouth even, they’ve done unbelievably on the market. They’re getting players for £20-£40m and some of them are as good as the £100m players. It’s got them to places where they never thought they would be three or four years ago.
Being smart in the transfer market is so important these days. Of course, you want big-name stars to come to Anfield, but there’s always been players out there for Liverpool who would be a good fit for the team.
These new players who have come in costing a fortune have got to show that they can do it. If Brighton, Brentford, and Bournemouth can do it, then we should be able to as well.
No time for resting players in Champions League
I’m sure Andoni Iraola would like to rest a few players in the Champions League against LASK this week, but it’s hard. He’s not really got an option to do that. Maybe one or two changes in defence but you can’t take anything for granted. You’ve got to get points on the board.
Gravenberch will probably play because he’s suspended at the weekend, but then you look up front and he hasn’t got many options to change it. But the players will just have to get their heads down and get on with it.
I know the game has changed, but we used to play three games over an Easter weekend - Friday, Saturday, Monday! They just need to be mentally strong and get on with what they need to do out there.
