Liverpool's Right-Side Puzzle: Adapting Without Salah
Bradley Barcola arrived on Merseyside as the headline act of the summer. A Champions League winner with France on his CV, prised from Paris Saint-Germain for a staggering £123 million, he was the kind of signing that usually signals a new era.
Just not on the side of the pitch everyone expected.
Barcola, like Cody Gakpo, Rio Ngumoha and Victor Munoz, is most at home drifting in from the left. All four naturally gravitate to the same patch of grass. Andoni Iraola, stepping into a Liverpool side learning to live without Mohamed Salah and his 257 goals, has had to improvise.
The right wing used to pick itself. Now it’s a tactical jigsaw.
No Minteh, No Sarr – And No Ransom
Liverpool knew the issue was coming. Salah’s departure left a vacancy that cannot be glossed over with a few hopeful crosses from the wrong flank.
Targets were identified. Bids went in.
- Yankuba Minteh at Brighton.
- Ismaila Sarr at Crystal Palace.
Both more orthodox right-sided forwards, both seen as potential heirs to Salah’s role, if not his legacy. But negotiations with domestic rivals never reached the finish line. No agreement, no late twist.
The club could have pivoted to the next names on the list. Options C, D or E. They chose not to.
Instead, Liverpool parked the idea of a like-for-like replacement. They decided to live with the imbalance, lean on what they already had and revisit the problem in January. For now, patience beat panic.
Murphy: “You Don’t Just Buy to Fill a Shirt”
Former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy sees logic rather than negligence in that decision.
Speaking to GOAL courtesy of Snabbare, he pointed straight at the right-wing conundrum and the club’s pursuit of Minteh and Sarr: “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.”
The key, in his eyes, is resisting the urge to buy for the sake of it.
“As a football club, there's something to be said for not buying somebody or getting somebody just to fill,” Murphy said. “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 Liverpool’s stance. When Sarr and Minteh proved out of reach, the club looked inward rather than sideways.
“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.”
The message is clear: the profile has to be right, not just the position.
Left-Footers on the Right, Results on the Board
On the pitch, Iraola has wasted no time testing that theory.
Barcola, Gakpo, Ngumoha and Munoz have all been used off the right in the early weeks of the 2026-27 campaign. It’s not always looked seamless, but it has been effective enough.
One moment captured the idea perfectly. Away at Bournemouth, Gakpo picked up the ball on the right touchline, surged down the flank and whipped in a low cross. Alexander Isak did the rest, turning it into the winning goal. A left-sided forward, repurposed on the right, deciding a Premier League game.
That’s what Liverpool are banking on: intelligence over orthodoxy, versatility over rigid roles.
And the wider picture backs them up. Across the Premier League, Champions League and Carabao Cup, Liverpool remain unbeaten this season. The absence of a “new Salah” has not yet become a crisis, or even a serious inconvenience.
January Questions, But No Immediate Alarm
Minteh and Sarr have not disappeared from the story. Both are understood to be open to a move to Anfield, and it would be no surprise to see Liverpool revive their interest in early 2027 or next summer.
For now, though, the urgency has eased. Results have a way of calming transfer fever.
Iraola still has a lopsided squad when it comes to natural wide options, and everyone at the club knows it. But with Barcola, Gakpo, Ngumoha and Munoz rotating across the front line and Liverpool unbeaten on three fronts, the right-wing question feels less like an emergency and more like a calculated wait.
The real test will come later in the season: when the games pile up, when the margins tighten, and when this bold decision to trust what they have is judged not in theory, but in trophies.
