Liverpool are set to sign PSG’s Bradley Barcola at immense cost - but is the Frenchman ready to step into Mohamed Salah’s shoes?
It took some time, but Liverpool finally seem to have found their replacement for Mohamed Salah. Reports suggest that their lengthy negotiations over a deal for PSG winger Bradley Barcola have finally borne fruit, and that the Frenchman will be on his way to Anfield in the coming days.
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AFP via Getty Images
According to The Athletic’s David Ornstein, Barcola will set Liverpool back £100m with the potential for around another £20m in add-ons. It’s a huge sum, but likely worth it if he proves to be a serviceable replacement for the outgoing Egyptian – but is that the likely outcome of one of the summer’s biggest transfer deals, or will the Frenchman struggle to live up to the expectations this transfer will inevitably create?
Is Bradley Barcola a worthy replacement for Mohamed Salah?
Bradley Barcola moved to PSG from Lyon in 2023 for an estimated £38.5mplaceholder image
Bradley Barcola moved to PSG from Lyon in 2023 for an estimated £38.5m | Getty Images
Stepping into Salah’s shoes won’t be straightforward. The winger will go down as one of the Premier League’s greatest players, and there are few forwards in the world who could match his production before his form began to fall away in 2025. Barcola’s signing will be a success story if he even gets close.
The 23-year-old, a member of France’s 2026 World Cup squad, has certainly been productive at a high level so far. He scored 39 goals in 152 games for PSG and provided a further 35 assists – impressive for a winger when one considers that he has never been much more than a rotational player at Parc des Princes.
This is a player who has outscored his xG for the past two seasons while consistently hitting the back of the net at a rate of slightly better than a goal every 160 minutes – more than a goal every other game. Most centre-forwards would be quite content with the numbers that Barcola has put up, and he is blessed with a rare combination of creativity, technique and pace. Few defenders find him easy to deal with.
Still, as impressive as his numbers are, they’re not as good as Salah’s were prior to the 2025/26 season. Salah scored considerably more, considerably faster, created more chances, completed more carries… by just about any metric you care to use, the best version of Salah has been rather better than Barcola has been thus far in his career. The best version of Salah has been better than just about everyone.
Data from Sofascore - taken from 2024/25 Premier League and 2025/26 Ligue 1 matches onlyplaceholder image
Data from Sofascore - taken from 2024/25 Premier League and 2025/26 Ligue 1 matches only | Getty Images/Iconic Media
The table above compares Salah’s stats from his last great season, in 2024/25, with Barcola’s work from last year. Nothing on Barcola’s side is at all unimpressive save for rate at which he provided assists (his expected assists were far higher), but the disparity is huge. Barcola is a good player, but a long way short of emulating Salah’s best work.
Liverpool didn’t have the option of clicking their fingers and signing someone who could operate at Salah’s level, of course. There are few players who tick that box, and all of them were spoken for. Liverpool’s hope is simply that Barcola can succeed on his own terms, but the comparisons with the great Egyptian will be entirely unavoidable and the scale of the transfer fee will created inflated expectations.
Success probably looks something like Barcola racking up 20 or more goal contributions as a bare minimum, but more importantly replicating some of Salah’s flair, directness and threat both down the flank and in narrower positions. After a difficult season, Liverpool need an attacking player who can give them belief, and ideally a few thrills along the way. He’s managed that in Ligue 1, but doing it in the Premier League is likely to prove a little bit harder.
Barcola has many of the tools to succeed at Liverpool – but the pressure will be intense
Barcola has struggled for regular gametime in PSG's star-studded front line and played 90 minutes just seven times last seasonplaceholder image
Barcola has struggled for regular gametime in PSG's star-studded front line and played 90 minutes just seven times last season | Getty Images
Barcola may also have to do all of this whilst playing out of position. A naturally right-footed player, he has spent some time on the right wing but far more out on the left as an inside forward. He won’t just have to adapt to a starring role at a new team in a different country, but he may have to play in an unfamiliar position too. This transfer won’t just be a test of his skill as a player, but also of his versatility and adaptability.
Liverpool also appear to be attempting to sign a second right winger – Crystal Palace’s Ismaïla Sarr, Brighton & Hove Albion’s Yankuba Minteh and Barcola’s current club team-mate Ibrahim Mbaye are all options – so it may be that Barcola gets to spend a fair amount of time in his more natural role. The present lack of depth suggests that his success or failure will hinge at least in part on his ability to play down the right, however.
To make everything just a little more difficult, he will be asked to link up with similarly expensive players who have failed – thus far – to adapt to life at Anfield themselves. Neither Alexander Isak nor Florian Wirtz have found their feet or been able to form part of a truly cohesive attacking unit, and Barcola will now be asked to form one alongside them.
That may not be the case for long, of course. Liverpool struggled for fluency under Arne Slot last season but now have a new head coach who has a strong track record of developing exciting, free-flowing football teams. Perhaps the Spaniard’s presence will make life a little bit easier.
Either way, this is still a team in transition who will now be placing a considerable amount of faith in a relatively young player. Given the transfer fee, the demands placed on Barcola would already be substantial – given the fact that he’s also directly replacing one of the club’s greatest ever players, those demands will only become greater still.
To make life just a little bit trickier, Barcola will move to Liverpool without the benefit of a proper pre-season – he hasn’t played since scoring in the extraordinary 6-4 defeat to England in the World Cup third-place play-off and was left out of PSG’s squad for their first Ligue 1 game of the new season. He may need at least a little bit of time to get up to speed.
Barcola probably won’t be given grace for all that long, of course. He is coming to a club which needs a saviour, stepping into the shadow both of Salah and of the failures of Isak and Wirtz. He comes with a colossal price tag. The pressure will be immense and patience will be thin on the ground. In short: Barcola had better be good.
Will he be? It’s uncertain. He’s made the step up from Lyon to PSG effectively, impressing former France manager Didier Deschamps enough to earn 28 international caps along the way. Coaches have regularly praised his grounded approach and ability to keep improving. He has seldom shown any flashes of the egocentricity of many of the gifted young forwards who have followed broadly similar paths towards stardom.
In other words, he’s precisely the kind of player who will earn adoration on Merseyside if he can step into Salah’s freshly-vacated boots and look the part. It just so happens to be the toughest challenge that Barcola has yet taken on. It’s an expensive gamble, with the outcome entirely uncertain.