Liverpool's Right-Sided Search: The £145 Million Dilemma
Liverpool’s search for a new right-sided star has crashed headlong into the brutal reality of the modern transfer market – and Michael Owen believes Paris Saint-Germain know exactly how to exploit it.
With Mohamed Salah gone to Trabzonspor on a free, the clock ticking towards the deadline and a gaping hole on Liverpool’s right flank, PSG have, in Owen’s view, named their price and dared the Reds to blink: £145 million for Bradley Barcola.
That number stopped the former Liverpool striker in his tracks.
A desperate need, a brutal price
Liverpool’s need is obvious. Salah’s departure was sudden, the timing awkward, the scale of the loss enormous. Nine years on Merseyside yielded 257 goals, 123 assists and a cabinet that now holds two Premier League titles and a Champions League crown. You don’t quietly replace that sort of output. You scramble.
The club have been linked with Yan Diomande and Ibrahim Mbaye, but 23-year-old French winger Barcola has surged to the top of the shortlist. Young, talented, already at an elite club. On paper, he fits the profile.
On the balance sheet, it’s a different story.
Speaking to the ECHO, Owen didn’t hide his disbelief at the figures being floated for a player who has yet to test himself in English football. He sees a classic case of a selling club smelling weakness.
PSG, he believes, are capitalising on Liverpool’s urgency. Everyone in Europe knows the Reds have lost one of the most devastating wide forwards of the era. Everyone knows they need a statement signing. That kind of leverage comes at a cost.
“At some point you’ve got to say no”
Owen’s reaction to the touted £145m fee was blunt. For a forward “not proven in the Premier League”, the former Ballon d’Or winner feels the line between ambition and excess is in danger of being crossed.
He has long had a different solution in mind. Months ago, he publicly argued that Jared Bowen should be Liverpool’s Salah successor, believing the West Ham man’s profile and Premier League pedigree made him an ideal fit. That avenue, he now accepts, looks closed.
So Liverpool are left in a familiar position for a superclub in distress: they must buy, everyone knows they must buy, and the price of every conversation rises accordingly. Owen recognises that reality. He also recognises the risk.
The phrase he kept circling back to was the same one that will be echoing through Liverpool’s recruitment meetings: extortionate. At £145m, he called it “eye-watering”. Pay through the nose, or walk away.
From abundance to shortage out wide
For years, Liverpool’s wide options were the envy of Europe. Salah, Sadio Mane, Luis Diaz – relentless, interchangeable, devastating. The front line picked itself and terrified everyone else.
Now, as Owen pointed out, that era feels distant. The depth on the flanks has thinned. The club no longer boasts a conveyor belt of elite wingers; it has a shortage.
In his view, Liverpool don’t just need one wide attacker. They probably need two. One to carry the immediate burden of replacing Salah’s output, another to restore genuine competition and variety across the front line.
That is where Barcola comes back into focus. Owen accepts the Frenchman has the quality and, crucially, appears to be available. The interest from Liverpool, he suggested, is real. The question is whether the numbers can be made to make sense.
A test of Liverpool’s resolve
There is no mystery about what happens next. Liverpool must decide how far they are willing to go to secure a player who could define the next phase of their attack.
Barcola offers youth, upside and top-level experience with PSG. He does not offer guarantees in the Premier League. PSG, sensing Liverpool’s predicament, are pushing the valuation to its limits.
Owen’s stance cuts to the heart of the dilemma: at what point does the need to replace a legend collide with the responsibility to protect the club’s long-term structure?
Liverpool have spent the past decade building a reputation as one of Europe’s smartest operators in the market. The coming days will show whether they stick to those principles under pressure, or accept that, in this window, they might have to pay a price that even their former No.10 can barely believe.
