Liverpool’s Right-Side Dilemma: Why Iraola Avoided Panic Signing for Salah
Bradley Barcola was the statement signing of Liverpool’s summer, a £123 million capture from Paris Saint-Germain and a Champions League winner parachuted onto Merseyside to help usher in a new era. Yet the problem he walks into is as old as modern Liverpool itself: how do you live without Mohamed Salah?
Barcola prefers the left. So does Cody Gakpo. So does Rio Ngumoha. So does Victor Munoz.
Andoni Iraola is looking at a squad stacked with left-sided forwards while the right flank, once Salah’s personal stage, now feels like borrowed space. Someone has to cross the pitch and fill the void left by 257 goals. No one was signed specifically to do it.
Minteh, Sarr… and a firm ‘no’ to overpaying
Liverpool did look. Hard.
Yankuba Minteh at Brighton was on the radar. So was Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr. Both profile far more naturally as right-sided forwards, the sort of players who could, on paper, step into Salah’s lane and stay there.
Bids went in. Deals did not.
Liverpool walked away rather than get dragged into a domestic bidding war. No late scramble for option C, D or E. No deadline-day roll of the dice just to say they’d “replaced” Salah.
The club chose patience. Use what’s already in the building. Reassess in January. For now, that’s the strategy.
‘Don’t just buy to fill’ – Murphy backs the gamble
Former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy believes that restraint is no accident. Speaking to GOAL courtesy of Snabbare, he pointed straight at the right-wing imbalance and the names that got away.
“I think there were a lot of rumours around trying to get Minteh and Sarr in, who are obviously more right-sided players, so they're obviously aware of it,” Murphy said.
He backed the club’s refusal to buy for the sake of optics.
“As a football club, there's something to be said for not buying somebody or getting somebody just to fill. If you've already got talented, intelligent footballers there, who can play that side – because I've seen Barcola play off the right, I think Gakpo's got the intelligence to do it, I think he'll score goals from there. He got a great assist from there, actually, I think in the Forest game from the right side.”
That’s the crux of the internal calculation. When Minteh and Sarr proved unattainable, Liverpool looked inward rather than outward.
“So they probably looked at what they already had when they couldn't get Sarr or Minteh and thought, ‘you know what, let's not rush and get someone in who doesn't quite fit the criteria’. So I understand it.
“You don't always get what you want in a window. You can't be held to ransom and pay over the odds for players just because you desperately need them, because they've spent a lot of money.
“So in an ideal world you'd want a more orthodox right-sided player, I agree with that, but ultimately do I think they've got enough for now in Munoz, who's shown glimpses on that side, and Gakpo can play that side and even Barcola? I think they've got enough.”
It’s a calculated risk, not an oversight.
Left-footers on the right – and a winning formula, for now
The early weeks of the 2026-27 season have turned Liverpool’s right flank into a shared workspace.
Gakpo, Ngumoha, Munoz and Barcola have all spent spells operating from that side, each asked to bend their natural instincts for the sake of balance. The experiment is not just theoretical; it’s already delivering points.
At Bournemouth, Gakpo burst down the right touchline, drove low into the box and picked out Alexander Isak for the winner. It was the kind of move Liverpool fans had grown used to seeing from Salah – same channel, different profile, same outcome.
Across the Premier League, Champions League and Carabao Cup, Iraola’s side remain unbeaten. The absence of a “new Salah” has not yet turned into a crisis. It barely qualifies as a problem while the results keep stacking up.
January questions and a long shadow on the right
The story is far from over, though.
Interest in Minteh and Sarr is not dead, only paused. Both are understood to be keen on a move to Anfield, and Liverpool could easily circle back in early 2027 or next summer if the right flank starts to creak under the strain of improvisation.
For now, Iraola leans on intelligence over orthodoxy, on versatility over like-for-like. Barcola, Gakpo, Ngumoha and Munoz will keep rotating, keep adapting, keep trying to turn a left-sided comfort zone into a right-sided solution.
The unbeaten run buys Liverpool time. The question is simple and unforgiving: how long can they keep defying the need to sign a specialist before Salah’s shadow finally demands a permanent heir on that right wing?
