Liverpool Reinvent Attack with Barcola and Munoz
Two months on from Mohamed Salah’s exit, Liverpool are not searching for a clone. They are rewriting the script.
Andoni Iraola has walked into Anfield and, instead of begging for a left‑footed saviour on the right, has turned the attack on its head. The new manager is leaning into a different kind of chaos to fill the void left by the Egyptian.
Barcola flips the attack
The statement came in the transfer market. Liverpool made Bradley Barcola one of the most expensive signings in their history, handing the Paris Saint-Germain winger the keys to the attack.
Barcola’s numbers from last season – 13 goals and seven assists – explain part of the attraction. The rest is about profile. He is right‑footed, explosive, and most dangerous when he starts wide on the left and slices inside. In other words, he inverts Salah’s old role completely.
Instead of a left‑footer drifting in off the right, Liverpool now have a right‑footer driving in from the left. The entire attacking balance has swung across the pitch.
That shift has created a new problem.
Four left wingers, no right winger
With Barcola now expected to dominate the left, Liverpool’s squad looks lopsided. They finished the summer window with four players most comfortable on the left flank and not a single natural right winger.
The consequences have already been on show.
Teenage talent Rio Ngumoha was thrown in on the right against Newcastle and laboured through the contest. Cody Gakpo then tried to plug the gap on that side against Nottingham Forest and fared only slightly better. Both are used to seeing the game from the opposite wing.
Iraola, though, is not panicking. He thinks the answer might already be in the building.
Munoz the immediate fix, kids the long play
Víctor Munoz arrived as another new attacking option and, in Iraola’s eyes, could be the short‑term solution out wide.
“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 their Premier League trip to Ipswich Town.
Munoz offers something closer to what the system now needs: a wide player comfortable operating on the right, able to stretch the pitch and feed the central striker with more direct service.
Yet Iraola is just as determined to use this moment to grow his younger players, not hide them.
“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.”
The message is clear. Munoz might stabilise the flank, but Ngumoha will keep getting chances to learn a new side of the game.
Isak’s supply line and the Ipswich test
All of this tactical tinkering is not theory. It has a very real target: making Liverpool dangerous again in the final third.
A more traditional right winger could transform life for Alexander Isak. The Swedish striker thrives as a penalty‑box presence, bullying defenders when the ball is whipped in early and often. He needs crosses, cut-backs, and clear service to fully unlock his goalscoring threat.
If Munoz nails down that role, Isak stands to gain the most.
Ipswich Town on Friday will offer another snapshot of how quickly Iraola’s ideas are bedding in. The shape is changing, the angles of attack are different, and the patterns on both flanks remain a work in progress.
Gakpo stays in the fight
Amid all the structural change, Cody Gakpo’s status still matters. Manchester City and Tottenham tested Liverpool’s resolve late in the window, but the Dutchman stayed put and remains a central figure in the squad.
He will keep battling for minutes across the front line as Iraola steers Liverpool into this new tactical era, one where Salah’s shadow looms large but no longer dictates the way they play.
The question now is simple: how quickly can this reimagined attack turn theory into goals?
