Michael Owen advises Liverpool to reconsider £145m Barcola transfer

Michael Owen believes Liverpool should step back from a blockbuster move for Paris Saint-Germain winger Bradley Barcola if the price stays at a staggering £145 million.

With Mohamed Salah gone and alternative targets Yan Diomande and Michael Olise slipping away, Liverpool have turned their attention to Barcola as a potential headline replacement on the right. Reports in France and England suggest the 21-year-old is open to the move and has already informed PSG he does not intend to extend his current deal, which runs to 2028.

The player, in other words, is gettable. The fee is the problem.

PSG are said to be holding out for around £145m, a figure Liverpool are unwilling to match. The Anfield hierarchy are understood to be more comfortable around the £100m mark, a huge outlay in itself, but Owen insists the French champions’ valuation crosses a line.

“That sounds extortionate, doesn’t it? For someone that’s not proven in the Premier League,” he told the Liverpool Echo when asked about the £145m demand.

“Obviously played at the highest level, but, yeah, at some point you’ve got to say no, haven’t you? If it gets to £145m, I mean, wow, that’s eye-watering.”

Owen has long argued that Liverpool needed a more established Premier League option to replace Salah and previously nailed his colours to a different mast.

“I mean, 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.

“But, obviously, that doesn’t look possible anymore, so they’re going to have to.

“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.

“But it sounds extortionate, doesn’t it? £145 million, that’s the number that you’re saying.”

A market short on elite wingers

Owen’s concern is not only the size of the fee. It is the scarcity of alternatives.

“You know, it used to be Salah, and Mane and Diaz,” he said, reflecting on an era when Liverpool’s wide options felt almost limitless.

“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.

“They probably need two. They certainly need one.”

That is the tension at the heart of Liverpool’s summer: a glaring need in a position where the supply of top-tier options is thin, and where every selling club can see the hole in their squad from a mile off.

“So, yeah, I mean, they do probably need to invest heavily in that type of position. And he [Barcola] seems to be one that’s available, that’s got the quality. 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.”

Liverpool know they cannot replace Salah on the cheap. The question now is simple and brutal: how far are they prepared to go before the numbers stop making football sense?