Why Liverpool are ready to make Barcola third £100m signing

Liverpool have twice paid more than £100m for players - midfielder Florian Wirtz and striker Alexander Isak - and could be about to do so again.

Paris St-Germain and France winger Bradley Barcola has become a main target for Liverpool, with the Reds prepared to pay about £100m, while PSG are holding out for somewhere near £145m.

Liverpool, who finished fifth in the Premier League last season, 25 points behind champions Arsenal, could eventually end up paying Bayer Leverkusen £116m for Wirtz, while they shelled out a club record £125m to sign Isak from Newcastle.

And they could be about to break the bank for 23-year-old Barcola, who was part of France's squad at the World Cup.

He came on as a second-half substitute in both the past two Champions League finals, when PSG beat Inter Milan 5-0 in 2024-25 and then in May when they edged past Arsenal on penalties to retain their title.

Barcola moved to PSG from Lyon in 2023 for a reported £38.5m and has since also won three Ligue 1 titles, the French Cup twice, as well as the Uefa Super Cup and the Fifa Intercontinental Cup.

He is right footed, although he prefers to play on the left wing, but can also play on the right or through the middle.

However, with PSG also having Georgia's Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and France's Desire Doue as wide options, Barcola does not play 90 minutes every match so a move to Anfield would give him more playing time.

With Mohamed Salah leaving on a free transfer at the end of last season having scored 257 goals in a hugely successful nine-year spell with the Reds, Liverpool clearly need to strengthen their attack.

France forward Hugo Ekitike ruptured his Achilles tendon in April and is not expected to play again in 2026, while Cody Gakpo, another who can play on the left and in the middle, has been linked with a move to Tottenham, although Liverpool say they do not want to sell.

The Reds' other current attacking options include 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha, Italy forward Federico Chiesa and new signing Victor Munoz.

Barcola has played 28 times for France and scored three goals in this summer's World Cup, including in the 6-4 loss to England in the third-place play-off.

However, like at club level, his game time was limited because of the skills of his 21-year-old PSG team-mate Doue.

Boss Didier Deschamps stuck with Ballon d'Or holder Ousmane Dembele on the right and rotated Barcola and Doue, with both men starting four of France's eight World Cup matches, but never in the same game.

The stats that show Barcola's strengths

At first glance, Barcola looks like the natural successor to Luis Diaz.

Liverpool chose not to sign a direct replacement after the Colombian's departure last summer, but the underlying data suggests the PSG forward could fill that void.

Opta's player similarity model rates the Frenchman as the winger whose output most closely resembled Diaz's across Europe's top five leagues in 2025-26 (78%), with Mohamed Salah (65%), Lamine Yamal (61%) and Vinicius Junior (61%) the next closest matches.

A closer look, however, suggests Liverpool would not simply be replacing one winger with another.

Barcola is a left winger by trade, having played almost all of his Champions League minutes for PSG on that flank, but his game is shaped by a centre-forward's instincts. He played as a striker until the age of 17, something reflected in his movement and shot selection.

Last season, he averaged 3.5 shots per 90 minutes in Ligue 1, placing him among the division's most active shooters despite operating from wide areas.

His 9.83 expected goals (xG) ranked in the 95th percentile among wingers across Europe's top five leagues, meaning only around 5% of wide players consistently found themselves in better goalscoring positions.

Barcola converted those chances into 11 league goals, outperforming his xG, while no PSG player or Ligue 1 winger recorded a higher xG total during the 2025-26 campaign.

Those instincts are reflected in how he attacks defenders. Barcola was the only player across Europe's top five leagues to average more than two shot-ending carries per 90 minutes (2.06), illustrating his ability to drive at opponents before creating shooting opportunities for himself.

He also averaged 8.69 touches in the opposition penalty area per 90 minutes - the seventh-highest figure among more than 1,500 eligible players - reinforcing the profile of a winger who consistently occupies goalscoring positions.

His shot map highlights a player who attacks dangerous central areas rather than settling for speculative efforts from distance. Only Ousmane Dembele had a better combined shot volume with chance creation in Ligue 1, underlining Barcola's rare ability to both finish attacks and create opportunities for team-mates.