Liverpool's Tactical Shift: Barcola's Impact and Right Flank Challenges
Two months on from Mohamed Salah’s departure and Liverpool are still feeling the jolt. The goals, the angles, the gravity he gave that right flank – all gone. In his place, Andoni Iraola is not so much patching a hole as redrawing the entire map.
Barcola flips the script
Rather than chase a like-for-like, left-footed winger to hug the touchline on the right, Liverpool have gone the other way. They’ve changed the balance of the attack entirely.
Bradley Barcola is the statement of intent. One of the most expensive signings in the club’s history, the Frenchman arrives from Paris Saint-Germain carrying the numbers of a rising star: 13 goals and seven assists last season. He is right-footed, explosive, and happiest when driving in from the left.
In other words, he inverts Salah’s old brief. Where the Egyptian cut inside from the right, Barcola wants to slice in from the opposite side, pulling defences in a different direction and asking Liverpool’s forwards to learn new runs, new patterns, new habits.
That shift has consequences.
A lopsided attack
With Barcola now owning the left, Liverpool suddenly look overloaded on that side and exposed on the other. Four players who prefer the left wing, no natural right winger in sight after the summer window slammed shut.
The imbalance has already shown. Teenage prospect Rio Ngumoha toiled on the right against Newcastle, struggling to find rhythm or the angles that come naturally to him on his favoured side. Cody Gakpo, asked to do a similar job against Nottingham Forest, fared only slightly better.
Iraola knows he needs more. He thinks he has it in Víctor Munoz.
“Víctor has played more games on the left in his career but has maybe been even better on the right,” the Liverpool manager said before Friday’s Premier League trip to Ipswich Town.
Munoz offers something closer to a true wide outlet on that flank, even if his CV leans left. He can stretch the pitch, hit early balls, and give the attack a more traditional shape when required.
Iraola’s gamble on youth
Even with Munoz ready-made for that role, Iraola is not prepared to abandon his project on the right. He wants Ngumoha to grow there, to suffer a little, to learn.
“We know Rio can play on the left and showed his qualities,” he said. “He needs to develop on the right so it gives him more options to play. He is so young. [But] because he wasn't incredible in the first game on the right, we can't say he will never play on the right anymore.”
That is the tension at the heart of Liverpool’s new era: results now versus development later. The manager is trying to keep both plates spinning while reshaping a frontline that, for years, revolved around one man.
Service for Isak, minutes for Gakpo
The stakes are obvious. Liverpool head to Ipswich with a system still under construction and an attack that must start to click quickly if they are to stay sharp in the final third.
A more orthodox right winger could transform life for Alexander Isak. The Swede is built for the penalty area – tall, strong, and ruthless when the ball arrives in the right zones. He thrives on direct service: early crosses, cut-backs, balls whipped between goalkeeper and defence. If Munoz nails down that flank, Isak’s numbers could surge.
Gakpo, meanwhile, remains central to the picture. Manchester City and Tottenham tested Liverpool’s resolve late in the window, but the Dutchman stayed and will scrap for his minutes across the front line as Iraola tweaks and experiments.
Barcola bending in from the left. A vacancy – or an opportunity – on the right. A manager determined to force a new identity onto a team that used to know exactly where its goals came from.
Ipswich will see the latest version on Friday. The question now is how long Liverpool can live in transition before this brave new shape finally hardens into something ruthless.
