Liverpool's Transfer Window: Barcola Pursuit and Gakpo's Future

Liverpool’s summer was sold as a reset. So far, it has felt more like a standstill.

Mid-August, and that familiar tension is back around Anfield. The promise in June was clear enough: this would be a big window, an aggressive rebuild to arm Andoni Iraola with a squad capable of sustaining a title defence and going deeper in Europe. The reality has been slower, thinner, and far more complicated.

Yan Diomande was supposed to be the flagship signing, the statement forward to help absorb the loss of Mohamed Salah and headline a refreshed front line. Another top-level winger was expected to follow. None of that has materialised. Diomande slipped away, the marquee move never came, and Liverpool’s business has instead revolved around smaller steps.

Ronald Araujo and Victor Munoz have brought extra quality and depth, but they have not addressed the glaring weak points everyone can see. The squad still feels unbalanced. The big hole in attack is still there.

And then there is the logjam.

Liverpool’s non-homegrown quota is full. Too many fringe players are clogging up spaces that Iraola needs for real contributors. Until some of that so-called deadwood moves on, the club is boxed in. Wataru Endo, Calvin Ramsay and Federico Chiesa are among those whose futures hang over every conversation about new arrivals. Someone in that bracket has to go before anyone else can come in.

So the window has turned into a waiting game. Anxious, drawn-out, and increasingly noisy.

Inside that noise, one pursuit has begun to cut through. Liverpool are in talks with PSG over a possible double move for Bradley Barcola and Ibrahim Mbaye. It is ambitious, it is complicated, and it is far from guaranteed. But this is where the energy is now. If Liverpool can somehow land both, the entire picture of their attack changes.

That is where Cody Gakpo comes in.

The Dutchman is a Premier League champion and has played a meaningful part in Liverpool’s success. Yet the sense around the club is that a serious offer this summer would at least be listened to. It jars at first glance: a team already short of forwards contemplating the sale of a versatile attacker. Look a little closer, and it explains the ferocity of the push for Barcola and Mbaye.

If those two deals get done, Iraola suddenly has more speed, more variety, more options across the front line. At that point, moving Gakpo for a substantial fee becomes easier to rationalise. The money could be used to reshape the attack around a new core, rather than patching holes.

Interest is not a problem. Tottenham like Gakpo and are monitoring the situation. If the numbers are right, a late-window move to north London would not shock anyone inside the game.

Liverpool, though, cannot afford to get this sequence wrong. Letting Gakpo leave without the right reinforcements already in place would be reckless given the current squad. Any exit for him only makes sense if Barcola and Mbaye are through the door first, or at the very least nailed on.

That is why the pace of the Barcola story matters. The situation around the 21-year-old winger is accelerating. According to Le Parisien, a move is expected within days, and Liverpool are now effectively the only serious contender left in the race. The path is clear. The question is whether they walk it in time.

If Barcola lands at Anfield and Mbaye follows, the dominoes start to fall. The attack looks different. The wage bill loosens. The Gakpo decision moves from hypothetical to urgent.

The clock is still ticking on Liverpool’s summer. The next few days will decide whether this window finally explodes into life – or leaves Iraola trying to defend a title with a squad that never quite got the overhaul it was promised.