Barcola Liverpool
Bradley Barcola celebrates goal for Liverpool.
Bradley Barcola and Florian Wirtz looked like £100m+ players against very willing opponents and the more said about Jeremie Frimpong the better.
Kostas Tsimikas drifting unchallenged into midfield from a left-back position that hasn’t been his at Liverpool since May 2025 – insofar as as a rare start can count as ownership – before pirouetting beyond two opposition players and playing a defence-splitting pass into Lewis Koumas gave us a pretty good early indication of the calibre of the Reds’ opponents here. LASK are not a good football team.
It puts the drool-worthy displays of much-maligned duo Florian Wirtz and Bradley Barcola in context. But still, they and Liverpool needed this.
Wirtz enjoyed brief respite from what has very slowly become a Liverpool nightmare on international duty, where Jurgen Klopp got something close to the best out of a player whose undoubted quality has merely been signposted as a caveat by pundits and fans criticising what has been his shocking lack of impact in the Premier League following his £100m transfer last summer.
Signed to be the difference-maker in games like their clash with Manchester City on Sunday, he did very little once again, and having been given an astonishing amount of time to bed in and leeway for poor performances, his critical chickens are finally coming home to roost.
Jamie Carragher has told Andoni Iraola to drop him to accommodate Ryan Gravenberch – who excelled against City before his red card – alongside Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai in midfield. Nicky Butt has branded him a “little kid”. Paul Scholes says he’s “made for Spain”. Jason Cundy reckons he’s “the biggest waste of money” in Premier League history.
A game of glorious touches, expert vision, line-breaking passes and an actual bona fide assist against maybe the worst of 36 teams in the Champions League isn’t about to turn skeptics into believers. No football team should be conceding from a Jeremie Frimpong header.
But it’s a game Liverpool will hope provides a much-needed confidence boost and serves as a timely reminder that Wirtz can actually be good for his club side.
Barcola can enjoy those same two positives, with the added uplift of scoring not only his first goal for Liverpool but his first senior hat-trick.
He secured the match ball with a tap-in at the back post, but his first two goals were beautifully taken by a footballer we’ve consistently been told lacks end product. It may be LASK, but that doesn’t change the goal dimensions and he hit the side-netting with his right and then his left foot in clinical fashion.
Iraola will be hugely frustrated but won’t wonder why his side conceded three goals, so obvious is the answer. After two excellent assists to go with his very good goal, three defensive blunders meant Frimpong effectively drew 3-3 with LASK all on his own.
“The less said about Jeremie Frimpong the better, he’s all over the place,” said Jamie Carragher after Rayan Cherki sent him sliding into the Anfield car park on Sunday, but he’s too fascinating a footballer to ignore.
A baffling signing by dint of him very clearly not being a right-back at Bayer Leverkusen but being signed to play at right-back by Liverpool appears to actively take strides to make that point himself in each and every game he plays for the Reds.
He was outstanding in attack here, producing two beautiful crosses and getting in the box – as you want your high-and-wide full-backs to do – to get on the end of Tsimikas’ cross from the opposite side before leaping superbly and directing his header into the corner.
But we’re genuinely not sure if we’ve seen a worse defensive display from a footballer playing at full-back.
He was incredibly slow to close down the ball for LASK’s first, was miles behind the other defenders to play his opponent onside for the second before watching him run through on goal and was skipped past in laughable fashion on the wing for the third. Awful. Truly, truly awful.
It doesn’t really matter and actually serves Liverpool and Iraola well that one man who isn’t in their Premier League XI can be blamed for all three goals they conceded.
The skeptics will claim the fine performances of Barcola and Wirtz don’t matter all that much either. But bad performances from that pair against LASK would have, and who knows what this confidence boost will mean for them and Liverpool ahead of the far tougher tests to come.