Liverpool's Pursuit of Bradley Barcola Heats Up
Liverpool’s pursuit of Bradley Barcola is very much alive, with senior figures at Paris Saint-Germain and Anfield locked in what has become a direct, high-level negotiation over the winger.
The Premier League club are scrambling to reshape their forward line after the departure of Mohamed Salah to Trabzonspor at the end of last season, and Barcola has emerged as the priority for the left flank.
Barcola talks intensify as fee reality emerges
Fabrizio Romano has moved to cool the wildest numbers being thrown around. The suggestion of a €170m fee has been dismissed as unrealistic, even within the industry.
“On Bradley Barcola, guys, I told you since the beginning, it is not going to be €170m,” Romano said on his YouTube channel, stressing that while the final price will still be “a big amount of money”, nobody close to the talks has ever considered a figure that high to be remotely plausible.
The shape of the negotiation is unusual. There has been no drip-feed of formal bid amounts being accepted or rejected. Instead, Romano describes a “direct exchange day by day” between Liverpool and PSG, with conversations driven by club directors and owners rather than a traditional, public back-and-forth.
That approach underlines how serious Liverpool are. Romano is adamant: “The deal is alive. Barcola is absolutely, absolutely a deal that Liverpool want to complete in the next few days, and my expectation is absolutely for Liverpool to go very strong for Barcola.”
The message is clear: Liverpool are pushing, hard, and soon.
Liverpool’s wide rebuild: Barcola first, then one more
Barcola is not the only winger on Liverpool’s radar, but he is the one they want to nail down quickly.
On the right, the club have made two bids for Brighton winger Yankuba Minteh as they search for a long-term replacement in Salah’s zone. They have already brought in Victor Munoz from Osasuna, while a move for Yan Diomande was abandoned once it became clear the player preferred another destination.
The plan does not stop with Barcola, either. Romano notes that Liverpool intend to sign “one more” wide player if Cody Gakpo leaves, with Tottenham and Manchester City circling the Dutchman.
That conditional clause matters. Should Gakpo move to Spurs or City, Liverpool’s winger hunt will accelerate again, turning a big summer rebuild into a full-scale overhaul of the forward line.
PSG mood: expectation that Barcola goes
Inside PSG, the mood is shifting towards acceptance that Barcola is on his way out.
Journalist Ben Jacobs reports that club insiders “expect” the France international to leave before the window closes, with Liverpool the club in active talks. His update tallies with Romano’s depiction of a live, ongoing negotiation rather than a speculative link.
Jacobs also underlines the knock-on effect at Anfield: Tottenham “are still pushing” to sign Gakpo, while Manchester City retain an interest but, as of Monday night, had not yet made a direct approach to Liverpool.
So the picture is set. Liverpool are driving hard for Barcola, PSG are braced for his exit, and the Gakpo situation threatens to open up a second front in the final days of the window.
If Liverpool land Barcola and lose Gakpo in the same frantic spell, their attack will look very different by the time the season settles into its stride.
