Liverpool Pre-Season: New Signings and Attack Concerns

Liverpool step into their final pre-season weekend with questions in attack, fresh faces in the squad and a new man in the dugout preparing for his first Premier League campaign.

Anfield will get its first real glimpse of Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool on Sunday when the Reds host Italian side Como in their last warm-up game before the season starts. The Basque coach has three major senior signings to bed in and not much time left to do it.

The rebuild has not been quiet. Victor Munoz has arrived from Osasuna in a £34.5million deal, Jeremy Jacquet has come in from Rennes for £60m, and the headline move so far saw Ronald Araujo land from Barcelona on an initial season-long loan, with an option to buy written into the agreement. Three deals, three statements. Liverpool have backed their new manager.

Yet not everything has soothed nerves. Some pre-season scorelines have turned heads and stirred debate, underlining what many inside and outside the club already know: Iraola still needs more firepower. The need for attacking reinforcements is out in the open now, not whispered in the background.

That is where Bradley Barcola comes in. Liverpool have been on the trail of the PSG forward for some time, and the saga around his future has taken a significant twist, with a major development emerging over his expected exit from the French champions. The chase, long-running and closely watched, has moved into a new phase.

Another name on the radar, for very different reasons, is Rio Ngumoha. The young talent has been dragged into speculation over a possible move to Bayern Munich, but those links have been dismissed as unfounded. Even so, his future remains a talking point as Liverpool look to shape both their present and their next generation.

One more pre-season game, one more audition under the Anfield lights, and then the real thing begins. Iraola has his core, but will he have the extra attacking edge he clearly needs by the time the season kicks off?