Liverpool Targets Bradley Barcola as Mohamed Salah Successor

Liverpool’s search for a successor to Mohamed Salah has taken a sharp turn towards Paris – and this time the road is clear.

Barcola no longer ‘untouchable’

For months, Liverpool’s recruitment team have worked on parallel tracks: prepare for life after Salah, and do it without blinking at the market’s rising prices. One target kept coming back to the top of their lists – Bradley Barcola.

Until recently, that felt like a fantasy. Inside Paris Saint-Germain, Barcola had been regarded as off limits. Fabrizio Romano even described him as “untouchable” up to last week. That stance has cracked.

Romano now says Barcola “has serious possibilities to leave Paris in the summer transfer window,” with talks over a new contract “completely, completely on standby.” PSG, he stresses, no longer treat him as a player who cannot be sold.

The consequence is immediate: Liverpool and Arsenal are both on the phone.

Liverpool, Romano adds, have had Barcola “on the very top of their shortlist” since the 2025 summer window planning phase. Arsenal like him too, but in north London the hierarchy is clear – “position number one is Rogers, position number two is Barcola.”

In Paris, the equation is simpler. No agreement on a new deal, no sentimental pricing. PSG will listen, but only if a club arrives with what Romano calls an “important” financial package.

A ‘significant green light’ – at a brutal price

That is where Liverpool’s next move comes into focus. TEAMtalk report that the winger’s camp are now “actively exploring” a transfer this summer and that Liverpool have effectively been given a “significant green light” to push ahead.

The catch is brutal: prising Barcola out of PSG will not just be expensive, it will be historic.

The French champions are expected to demand around €150m (£128m, $172m) for the 23-year-old. That fee would set a new British transfer record and eclipse Liverpool’s own benchmark – the £125m they paid Newcastle for Alexander Isak last summer.

Liverpool already moved early in the window to bring in one wide player, Spain international Victor Munoz from Osasuna for around €40m. That deal, though, was never meant to be the Salah solution. The club have long planned for a marquee wide signing at the top of the pitch.

Initially, that player looked like RB Leipzig’s Yan Diomande. The Ivory Coast international had been the primary target, but the landscape shifted when it became clear he favours a move to PSG instead. His likely switch to Paris opened the door to a very different conversation: if PSG invest heavily in Diomande, does that make Barcola the saleable asset?

The answer, judging by the noises from France and from Barcola’s own camp, is increasingly yes.

If Barcola rejects another contract offer, TEAMtalk’s sources claim PSG will “reluctantly consider sanctioning a sale.” The dynamic is familiar: a club that doesn’t want to lose a player, a player not rushing to commit, and a market ready to test their resolve with extraordinary money.

Murphy: Diomande miss could be a ‘blessing’

Inside Liverpool’s fanbase, the debate has already started. Is Barcola worth a record-breaking outlay? Is he the right stylistic fit to replace Salah, particularly on the right?

Former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy believes the club might end up grateful that Diomande is heading elsewhere.

Speaking to BetWright, Murphy said: “I hope so because I think he’s a terrific player. I don’t think they should have been looking at Diomande for the money they were talking about anyway. He is a super talent, but that’s all he is: a talent. He’s a prospect.”

Murphy questioned the idea of paying “over £100m for a player who hasn’t a body of work that justifies that money,” and suggested missing out on Diomande “might be a blessing.”

Barcola, in his eyes, represents a more concrete proposition.

“Barcola would be less expensive and obviously maybe surplus to requirements with the signings PSG are making,” Murphy argued. “We’ve seen in the Champions League for the last couple of years now the impact he can have on games, so it’s a less risky signing.”

There is, however, a tactical wrinkle.

“The only thing with Barcola, of course, is he’s more comfortable on the left than the right,” Murphy pointed out. “He can play on the right on occasion, but really I think someone more used to and suited playing on the right would probably be a better option. But Barcola maybe, too, why not?”

That positional nuance matters. Salah has defined Liverpool’s right flank for years, cutting in from that side to devastating effect. Barcola’s natural game leans the other way. Any deal would not just be about replacing numbers; it would force a rethink of the forward line’s balance.

A reshaping that can’t be dodged

Liverpool have already accepted that this squad needs surgery, not a touch-up. The title win, the spending that followed, and the current uncertainty around key positions have created what Murphy called “an incredible conundrum that they’re in really and shouldn’t be in.”

Yet here they are, staring at a summer in which the identity of their attack could change in one or two decisive moves.

Barcola’s availability, Diomande’s likely switch to PSG, Munoz’s arrival, Arsenal’s own winger hunt – all of it feeds into a market that will not wait for anyone. Liverpool now know the price, they know the player is open, and they know PSG will sell if the money lands in the right range.

The question is no longer whether Bradley Barcola can be signed.

It is whether Liverpool are prepared to let the Salah era end with anything less than a statement that loud.