Liverpool's Salah Succession Plan: Barcola Emerges as Target

Liverpool’s search for the heir to Mohamed Salah has moved into sharper focus, with Paris Saint-Germain winger Bradley Barcola emerging as a live, and suddenly realistic, target.

The club have already paid around €40m to bring Spain international Victor Munoz from Osasuna to Anfield, a significant outlay on a wide player. It still won’t be enough. Inside the club, there is a clear understanding: if Salah does depart for the Saudi Pro League or Major League Soccer, Liverpool need not just depth, but a headline act.

For much of this summer, that man was expected to be RB Leipzig’s Yan Diomande. The Ivory Coast international sat at the top of Liverpool’s attacking shortlist, the profile they believed could carry the right flank into the next era. Then the picture changed. Diomande’s preference became clear – a move to PSG – and Liverpool’s carefully laid plans were forced back onto the drawing board.

That twist has dragged Barcola’s name back into the centre of the conversation.

From “Untouchable” to Available

Inside PSG, Barcola had been treated as off-limits. Fabrizio Romano even framed it that way: “Until last week, Barcola was untouchable,” he said, before stressing that the situation has shifted. The winger, once ring‑fenced, is now described as having “serious possibilities” to leave Paris in this window.

The reasons are as modern as they are simple. Contract talks between Barcola and PSG have stalled and stayed stalled. No agreement, no momentum, no clarity. When that happens at a club of PSG’s scale, the door to a sale never stays bolted for long.

Romano has maintained since April that Liverpool and Arsenal have both been in regular contact over Barcola. At Anfield, he sits “on the very top” of their winger shortlist, a long-term target brought forward by the looming Salah question. At Arsenal, he is admired but not the priority – with Rogers viewed as option one and Barcola as option two in Mikel Arteta’s attacking plans.

For PSG, the calculation is brutal but familiar. A player with no new deal in sight, serious interest from England, and a squad being reshaped around fresh signings. Barcola is no longer “untouchable”; he is an asset with a price.

A Green Light – at a Record Price

That price, though, will be enormous. TEAMtalk report that Liverpool have been given a “significant green light” to push ahead with a move, with Barcola’s camp actively exploring an exit from the French champions this summer.

The catch? It will take a British-record fee.

PSG are expected to demand around €150m (£128m, $172m) for the 23-year-old. That figure would eclipse Liverpool’s own transfer record, set only last summer when they paid £125m to sign Alexander Isak from Newcastle. For a club that has tried to stay disciplined in the market, it would be another thunderous statement of intent.

The scenario is clear. If Barcola rejects another contract renewal offer, PSG are prepared – reluctantly – to consider a sale. Liverpool, sources suggest, now see a move as an “increasing possibility”, provided the numbers can be made to work.

Diomande “Blessing” and Barcola’s Fit

If Liverpool do go all-in on Barcola, one former Anfield midfielder believes missing out on Diomande might actually help them.

Danny Murphy, speaking to BetWright, did not hold back on the Leipzig forward’s valuation. “I don’t think they should have been looking at Diomande for the money they were talking about anyway,” he said. Diomande, in Murphy’s eyes, remains “a super talent” but still just that – a prospect, not yet a proven £100m-plus force.

“Paying over the odds for a player based on potential,” he argued, never sat right. At that price point, he felt, Liverpool risked stepping into a deal that the player’s body of work simply did not justify. In that sense, he called the breakdown of the Diomande pursuit “a blessing”.

Barcola, he suggested, offers something different: a player who has already shown his impact on the Champions League stage, a winger who feels “less risky” despite the scale of the fee. With PSG’s recruitment drive potentially pushing him towards the exit, Liverpool could be buying a high-ceiling attacker who is also ready to influence major games immediately.

There is, however, a tactical wrinkle. Murphy pointed out that Barcola is “more comfortable on the left than the right”. He can operate off the right flank when required, but his natural side is the opposite of Salah’s. For a club trying to replace an era-defining right-sided forward, that matters.

“Really I think someone more used to and suited playing on the right would probably be a better option,” Murphy admitted, before circling back to the Frenchman. “But Barcola maybe, too, why not?” The implication is clear: the talent might be worth the compromise.

A Squad at a Crossroads

Behind the transfer noise lies a deeper issue. Liverpool’s squad, as Murphy put it, “needs a bit of reshaping”. They are trying to transition from a title-winning core while still competing at the very top, balancing massive spending with the need to refresh a group that has already delivered so much.

That is the conundrum. Replace Salah with a like-for-like right-sided killer, or pivot to a more fluid front line and ask the system to evolve around a different type of winger? Pay a British-record fee for a 23-year-old who prefers the left, or wait and risk watching him transform someone else’s attack?

Barcola’s availability has given Liverpool a rare opportunity. The question now is whether they are willing to bet the next phase of their forward line – and a huge chunk of their budget – on a player PSG no longer consider untouchable.