Liverpool's Right-Back Dilemma: A Risky Gamble

What looked like a tidy, controlled summer at Liverpool now has a jagged edge. On paper, the squad rebuild made sense: two defenders through the door, Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes and Ronald Araujo on loan from Barcelona. In reality, the one position screaming for a specialist – right-back – was left exposed.

The numbers add up to a simple truth. Calvin Ramsay was moved out on loan. Conor Bradley suffered a serious knee injury. That leaves Jeremie Frimpong as the only senior natural right-back in a squad chasing major trophies. For a club of Liverpool’s scale, that is not depth. That is a bet.

Carragher tears into the plan

Jamie Carragher didn’t bother dressing it up. Speaking on Stick to Football, he went straight for the decision-making.

“Conor Bradley got his chance and got a bad injury. My problem with it is, he's a good young player who's done really well, but if someone gets a bad injury, he's not that good that you don't replace him.

"You'd wait for Trent to come back and you'd wait for Andy Robertson to come back. Unfortunately I don't think we should be waiting for Conor Bradley to come back. You go and buy a right-back because Frimpong isn't one.

"When Conor Bradley comes back, he's then got to fight for his place and I think that's fair; but this thing of 'we've got to wait for Conor Bradley to come back' – no. We're Liverpool, one of the biggest clubs in the world.

"You can't wait for Conor Bradley. We've got to get him back and good luck to him, but they've made a massive mistake."

Strip away the emotion and the argument still stands. Bradley is talented, energetic, and brought a new dimension down that flank when he broke through. But building an entire season’s planning around his recovery always carried danger.

Bradley out, Frimpong under the spotlight

The problem is not just the date circled on the calendar for Bradley’s return. Serious injuries don’t end when the medical team clears a player. Match rhythm, timing in the tackle, the confidence to push off at full speed – those things take weeks, sometimes months. Liverpool cannot reasonably expect Bradley to walk straight back into the side and hit the same level from his first game.

So the weight falls on Frimpong.

He offers plenty going forward, with pace and aggression in the final third, and he can stretch teams in a way few full-backs manage. But his recent performances have not fully answered the questions on the defensive side of the role. In this Liverpool system, the right-back is not just an overlapping runner; he has to manage width, recovery runs, and positional discipline against some of the most dangerous wide players in Europe.

There is another layer of risk. Frimpong’s own fitness record last season was not spotless. Any setback, even a short one, and Liverpool are staring at makeshift solutions again – midfielders shunted into the back line, hybrid roles that never quite convinced during parts of the 2025/26 campaign. The club has already seen how awkward that can look over a long stretch.

Cover, but not the right kind

This is where the frustration bites hardest for supporters. Liverpool did not ignore the defence. Jacquet arrived. Araujo came in with the versatility to play across the back line. The issue is precision. They strengthened broadly, but not specifically where the squad was most fragile.

Araujo can fill gaps and offer flexibility, but cover is not the same as having a seasoned right-back ready to face the tempo and physicality of Premier League football week after week. The nuance of the role – when to tuck in, when to press high, how to protect the far post – is not learned on the fly at a club that expects to compete on multiple fronts.

Andoni Iraola now finds himself walking a tightrope. He needs Frimpong fit, confident, and quickly up to a consistently high level. He needs Bradley to return, but not be rushed. He needs to avoid another defensive injury that would drag the club back into emergency reshuffles.

Liverpool chose to ride out the storm at right-back rather than build a stronger shelter. The season will reveal whether that was bold faith in their existing options – or a miscalculation they will be forced to live with for months.