Liverpool's Tactical Imbalance: Questions Loom After £200m Spend

Liverpool have just spent another £200m-plus, outstripping last summer’s outlay, yet Andoni Iraola walks away from this window with a squad that raises more tactical questions than it answers.

Jamie Carragher did not bother dressing it up on Sky Sports. "It does not look like a balanced squad," he said. "Liverpool are short in the full-back areas and probably a midfield player as well."

That is the nub of the issue, even after a headline-grabbing £123m move for Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain.

A left-footed void where Salah once stood

Barcola’s arrival was supposed to soften the blow of losing Mohamed Salah, the most devastating left-footed right-winger the Premier League has seen. Instead, it has underlined the sense of imbalance. Liverpool have lost their defining right-sided threat and responded by stockpiling players who prefer the opposite flank.

"Liverpool have not got a real out-and-out right-sided attacker," Carragher said. "We have not got anybody with a left foot on that right side, like Mo Salah. I am disappointed. I am not quite sure what we are going to do on that right wing right now."

Barcola can play across the front line, but the fee screams: use him where he is best. That is not on the right. Cody Gakpo has started off the left. Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike have also operated there. Rio Ngumoha broke through on that side too, even if pre-season saw him tested on the opposite wing.

Victor Munoz might be the most natural candidate to attack from the right, yet he arrives on Merseyside off the back of just one top-flight season. As, predictably, a left winger.

None of this alone condemns Liverpool’s recruitment. The pattern is intriguing rather than disastrous. Still, supporters can see the holes elsewhere. The squad looks overloaded in some zones, thin to the point of anxiety in others.

Full-backs at the heart of the storm

Nowhere is that tension more obvious than at full-back. When Jeremie Frimpong signed last summer, Liverpool sources insisted he was not a like-for-like replacement for Trent Alexander-Arnold at right-back. Two league games into this season, that is exactly where the Netherlands international has been stationed.

With Conor Bradley injured, Frimpong is the only fit specialist in the role. Some have floated Dominik Szoboszlai as an emergency option, but that would be a fudge. Shunting a centre-back wide is no better in a system that demands so much from its full-backs.

And Iraola’s system demands plenty. The numbers prove it. Frimpong and Milos Kerkez sit among the top three Premier League players for sprints so far. Above both of them? Adrien Truffert, bombing on at Bournemouth under Iraola last season. This is not a quirk. It is the blueprint.

Look at Liverpool’s average positions across their opening two league fixtures and compare them to that title-winning campaign under Arne Slot. The full-backs fly forward, often together. That leaves the midfield with an unforgiving job: plug the gaps, or watch the counter-attacks tear through.

Midfield caught in the crossfire

This is where the doubts sharpen. Ryan Gravenberch rose to the physical challenge under Slot, but Alexis Mac Allister’s reduced dynamism over the last 18 months has been hard to ignore. In Iraola’s high-octane set-up, who does the dirty work when the ball breaks?

Is there even room for a classic holding midfielder? At Bournemouth, Iraola’s midfielders did not sit. They hunted. Alex Scott spoke about being "very aggressive" without the ball. Tyler Adams said: "The players really believe that we are going to win the ball high up the field."

That belief comes with risk. Liverpool have already felt it.

"I do not believe that midfield can function with the personnel in there," Carragher warned. "For me, it does not work. And it is not just about personnel, it is the structure the manager is asking for."

Within five minutes of the opening Premier League fixture, the rest defence crumbled. Full-backs pushed high, centre-backs dropped off, and the space between them yawned open. No midfielder filled it. Newcastle poured through and scored.

Given how aggressively the full-backs attack and how Virgil van Dijk increasingly prefers to drop rather than step up, that vulnerability is not going to vanish on its own. Iraola has been handed the most expensively assembled Liverpool squad in history. It might also be the most obviously flawed group the club has had for a decade.

Living with the risk

So where does the fix come from if not the market? Compromise, or at least recalibration.

"You do not want to lose the offensive side, the fluidity, the arrivals with numbers, but obviously we were punished the other day, especially in the first goal," Carragher said, reflecting on the balance Liverpool must strike.

"We did not do a proper lockdown. But there is a balance. We cannot go from one way where we send a lot of people forward to keeping everyone back so we do not arrive with numbers. I do not want to tell Ryan Gravenberch not to carry the ball or arrive in the box.

"It is a matter of identifying the situation. You cannot be with the joystick every time [controlling] the player. There are players that are very good at smelling the danger. 'I cannot risk going now. I think I have to stay.' Recognising those situations is the job."

For now, Liverpool look like a team destined for chaos: high-scoring draws, wild swings of momentum, breathtaking attacks, and soft underbellies. An imbalanced, imperfect side. But one that might just be too thrilling to look away from as the season unfolds.