Liverpool's £300m Dilemma: Isak's Revival Amid Ekitike and Barcola
The confetti from Liverpool’s title parade had barely been swept off the streets when the club tore into the 2025 summer window like a team determined to stay on top at any cost. It wasn’t tinkering. It was a full-scale offensive.
Florian Wirtz arrived for £116m. Hugo Ekitike for £69m. Then came the headline act: Alexander Isak, prised from St James’ Park to Anfield for a fee that made him the most expensive player in British football history.
This was meant to be the next great Liverpool front line. It hasn’t worked out that cleanly.
Big money, slow returns
Wirtz, the German playmaker billed as the creative spark to light up Anfield, never quite found his rhythm. The tempo of the Premier League, the weight of the fee, the expectation – it all dulled his impact.
Ekitike’s story turned cruel. An Achilles injury in April cut short his momentum and ripped away his chance to stake a claim just as the season hit its decisive stretch.
And Isak? The marquee man never really got out of the blocks. He missed pre-season, then broke his leg. The campaign became a slog of recovery and frustration, ending with just four goals in all competitions – a meagre return for a record signing at the peak of his career.
By the start of 2026-27, the questions had sharpened. Was this the wrong player, at the wrong time, for the wrong price?
A flicker of the real Isak
Those doubts have not vanished, but the mood has shifted.
Now 26, Isak has finally started to look like the forward Liverpool thought they were buying. Three goals in his last two Premier League games have changed the conversation, if not settled it. The movement is sharper, the finishes cleaner. There’s a hint of swagger again.
For Andoni Iraola, that matters. For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t have to agonise over who leads the line. Isak is playing, Isak is scoring, and the shirt is his.
The twist? That security might not last.
Ekitike is expected back around the turn of the year. When he returns, the dynamic changes instantly. Some would argue Isak has benefited from the lack of real competition while he searched for form.
Jermaine Pennant doesn’t buy that.
Speaking to GOAL in association with NetBet Casino, the former Liverpool winger rejected the idea that Isak has simply been lucky.
“I wouldn't say fortunate because I think they would have found a way maybe to play them both,” Pennant said.
He pointed to the timing of Ekitike’s injury and Cody Gakpo’s struggles as a key factor in how the attack has evolved. Ekitike, he noted, loves to drift left – a role Gakpo has often filled.
“It wouldn't have surprised me if at some point Isak would have started down the middle, Ekitike may have gone on to the left-hand side and come in on his right foot like Gakpo does and sometimes join up as two number nines,” Pennant added.
Two strikers, one drifting wide, one pinning centre-backs. Liverpool have done that dance before.
“But they are two good players, great players and you can't have a player like that sitting on your bench. They would have made a way, I think, for them both to play at some point.”
Pressure from the past, pressure from above
Isak isn’t just fighting for his place. He’s fighting perception.
Robbie Fowler, still “God” to the red half of Merseyside, admitted before this season kicked off that he was uneasy about the Swede’s ability to stay fit and deliver the numbers that justify his fee.
Speaking to GOAL, Fowler was blunt about what this campaign represents for Isak – and for Arne Slot, who failed to hit the mark in his second year and invited scrutiny of his own.
“Absolutely,” Fowler said when asked if Isak has to come good now to quiet talk of more attacking reinforcements. “And that's the case with the managers as well. The manager [Arne Slot] obviously didn’t deliver in the second year, so people questioned that. And as we all know, if people start questioning things, then there’s only one way you go.”
The message is clear. Deliver, or the club will look elsewhere. That applies to the man in the dugout as much as the man in the No. 9 shirt.
Isak has started to respond. He found the net against Nottingham Forest and Ipswich, reminders of the penalty-box poise that made him such a coveted forward.
Then came Europe.
Against Atletico Madrid in Liverpool’s opening Champions League fixture of 2026-27, he drew a blank. The team didn’t. They came from behind to win 2-1 at Anfield, a result that soothed nerves but did little to ease the spotlight on their record signing. On nights like that, Liverpool expect their biggest names to leave a mark.
Barcola and the coming storm
As if the attacking puzzle wasn’t complex enough, Liverpool have doubled down again.
France international Bradley Barcola has arrived for £123m, another huge swing in the market and another elite attacker for Iraola to fit into an already crowded front line. The fee alone guarantees he will not be treated as a squad player.
Barcola’s arrival adds pace, unpredictability and a fresh tactical option. It also adds pressure. Someone, at some point, will sit.
Right now, with Ekitike still working his way back and Isak finally showing signs of life, Iraola can delay the hardest decisions. The XI almost picks itself. The storm is still on the horizon, not overhead.
But that won’t last.
When Ekitike returns, when Barcola settles, when the Champions League nights stack up and the title race tightens, Liverpool’s manager will have to choose who truly leads this new era.
If Isak keeps scoring, he makes that decision for him. If he doesn’t, how long before Liverpool’s most expensive striker becomes the most expensive problem?
