Liverpool's £145m Dilemma: Michael Owen on PSG's Demands
Michael Owen believes Paris Saint-Germain are poised to squeeze every last penny out of Liverpool’s desperation.
With the clock ticking towards the transfer deadline and Mohamed Salah already out the door to Trabzonspor on a free, Liverpool’s search for a new winger has turned into a high‑stakes scramble. The void is enormous. The market knows it. And PSG, Owen suggests, are acting accordingly.
Liverpool’s £145m dilemma
Liverpool’s recruitment team have circled 23-year-old French winger Barcola as their priority target. Other names – Yan Diomande, Ibrahim Mbaye – have been mentioned, but Barcola is the one they are pushing for.
There is one problem. A huge one.
PSG’s price: £145 million.
Speaking to the ECHO, Owen did not hide his disbelief at the figures being floated for a player yet to kick a ball in the Premier League. The former Liverpool striker called the fee “extortionate” and pointed straight at the dynamic driving it: a selling club sensing a buyer with no room to manoeuvre.
In his view, the French champions have spotted Liverpool’s need to replace Salah at the top end of the pitch and are testing just how far the club will go. At some stage, Owen argued, a line has to be drawn, no matter how urgent the situation.
Missed Bowen move and shrinking options
Owen also revealed he had long championed a different route. He previously argued Liverpool should move for Jared Bowen from West Ham as Salah’s heir on the right, a player proven in the league and stylistically closer to what they were losing.
That door, he now accepts, appears to be shut. With Bowen seemingly off the table, Liverpool are left hunting in a market that knows exactly how badly they need a top-class wide forward.
The result is predictable: premiums everywhere. As Owen put it, when everyone knows you are desperate, you “pay through the nose.” Barcola, he suggested, might simply be the going rate for that profile in this particular moment, even if the number makes people wince.
Life after Salah
The scale of the task facing Liverpool’s recruitment department is stark. Salah’s nine years on Merseyside rewrote the club’s modern record books: 257 goals, 123 assists, 442 appearances. Two Premier League titles. A Champions League crown. Era-defining numbers from a winger who functioned like a centre-forward and talisman rolled into one.
Liverpool once boasted a frightening conveyor belt of wide talent. Salah, Sadio Mane, Luis Diaz – waves of pace, goals and chaos from the flanks. That depth has thinned. Owen described a “dearth” of wide options now, a sharp contrast to the riches of recent seasons.
In his eyes, Liverpool do not just need one winger. They “probably need two.” The market, though, offers few players with the right blend of age, quality and availability. Barcola, he acknowledged, ticks several of those boxes and appears genuinely gettable.
The question is simple and brutal: how much are Liverpool willing to suffer to make it happen?
Price versus necessity
For now, Barcola remains the name at the centre of Liverpool’s late-window storm. Owen accepts the player has the quality and that the interest looks real. He also knows the final decision will come down to one thing – the fee.
Liverpool have built a reputation on smart, value-driven recruitment. This, though, is a different kind of test: a post-Salah reset under pressure, with the world watching and the market circling.
Do they hold their nerve and walk away from a £145m demand? Or accept that, in this window, replacing a legend might cost an eye-watering sum and pay it anyway?
