Liverpool's Urgent Search for a Winger Amid Salah's Exit
Michael Owen has warned Liverpool they could be dragged into paying an “eye-watering” fee for PSG winger Bradley Barcola as the club scrambles to replace Mohamed Salah before the transfer deadline.
Salah’s shock move to Trabzonspor on a free has ripped a hole in Liverpool’s attack just days before the window closes. A front line once built on Salah, Sadio Mane and Luis Diaz suddenly looks thin, and the market knows it.
Liverpool’s desperation, PSG’s leverage
Liverpool have made a new winger their priority, with 23-year-old Frenchman Barcola now at the top of the list. Other names such as Yan Diomande and Ibrahim Mbaye have been floated, but the focus has hardened on the PSG forward as the clock ticks down.
PSG, though, are in no mood to offer charity. Their stance is clear: if Liverpool want Barcola, they pay. The French champions have been linked with a £145 million valuation, a figure that threatens to derail the move before talks even get serious.
Speaking to the ECHO, Owen didn’t hide his disbelief at the numbers being discussed. To him, this is a classic case of a selling club sensing vulnerability.
“At some point you’ve got to say no”
Owen’s reaction to the fee was blunt.
“That sounds extortionate, doesn't it? For someone that's not proven in the Premier League,” he said, noting that while Barcola has operated at a high level, the step into English football remains untested.
He underlined the sheer scale of the price: “If it gets to £145m, I mean, wow, that's eye-watering.”
Owen has long had a different solution in mind. Months ago, he publicly backed a move for West Ham’s Jared Bowen as the ideal Salah successor, a Premier League-ready wide forward with a proven record.
“I went on record a couple of months ago saying if I was Liverpool, I'd go and try to get Jared Bowen from West Ham to replace Salah. I thought that made a lot of sense,” he said.
That avenue now appears closed. Liverpool have had to look elsewhere, and every club they speak to knows exactly how badly they need a top-class wide player.
“And the problem is everybody knows you're desperate for a top-class player, so you're going to have to pay through the nose. That might be just what you have to do,” Owen admitted, before circling back to the figure on the table. “But it sounds extortionate, doesn't it? £145 million, that's the number that you're saying.”
Replacing a giant, not just a goalscorer
The scale of the task facing Liverpool’s recruitment team is stark.
Salah leaves behind numbers that belong to a different tier of player. Across nine years at Anfield, the 34-year-old delivered 257 goals and 123 assists in 442 appearances. Those contributions drove Liverpool to two Premier League titles and a Champions League crown, and defined an era in which the club’s wide forwards were among the most feared in Europe.
Now, that era feels distant.
“You know, it used to be Salah, and Mane and Diaz,” Owen reflected. “There's so many great wide players [at Liverpool] over the years. And it feels like there's a dearth of them, of course, now at Liverpool.”
The contrast is jarring: from abundance on the flanks to a squad suddenly short of elite options in those areas.
One winger, or two?
Owen believes this isn’t just about a like-for-like replacement. In his view, Liverpool may need more than a single signing to restore the balance of their attack.
“They probably need two. They certainly need one,” he said, stressing that serious investment out wide is no longer optional but essential.
Barcola, he accepts, ticks many of the right boxes. Young, talented, and available at a time when top-level wide players rarely move without a fight.
“He [Barcola] seems to be one that's available, that's got the quality,” Owen said. “And it sounds like there's no smoke without fire. It sounds like they'd be interested, but a lot will depend on the price, I guess.”
That is where Liverpool now stand: caught between the need to protect their long-term financial structure and the immediate pressure to keep their attack at a title-challenging level.
Pay through the nose for a winger who has never played a minute in the Premier League, or walk away and risk entering the season light in the very position that once defined them.
