Liverpool fans should have one worry about Bradley Barcola which he’ll badly need to improve at Anfield
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Bradley Barcola could well be the exact player Liverpool supporters have been praying for on the left wing since the exit of Luis Diaz.The Reds failed to replace Diaz last summer, despite reported interest in Barcola, but as they finally prepare to sign the Frenchman for £120m, there is huge excitement about how good he could become at Anfield.While fans are right to be positive, though, Barcola should not be expected to be a silver bullet to Liverpool‘s problems in attack. The Reds have been plagued with a series of forwards who fail to take big chances when presented with them, and, sadly, this is one thing which Barcola must improve on as well.
What does Andoni Iraola need to do differently for Liverpool to get three points against Nottingham Forest The Reds have lost the last two against Forest at Anfield Photo Credit: Getty Images/Gaspafotos/MB Media Barcola misses far too many big chancesFrom Darwin Nunez and Diaz himself to Hugo Ekitike and even Mohamed Salah, Liverpool attackers have made a habit of being toothless in front of goal in recent years.Take last year’s Champions League for example, when Ekitike and Salah sat fourth and sixth in the list of players to have missed the highest number of statistical ‘big chances.’ Ekitike missed 10, Salah missed nine.Concerningly, the man who sat in between them was Barcola, who also missed 10 big chances for Paris Saint-Germain.With a shot conversion rate of only 8%, the 23-year-old was statistically even worse at hitting the target than Ekitike (8.3%), and you have to go down to 29th on this list to find a player with a worse percentage.READ MORE: The staggering cost of Liverpool’s starting XI once Bradley Barcola has joined for £120mBarcola’s woes continued domestically as well, where he missed the fourth highest number of big chances in Ligue 1.Level with another rumoured Liverpool target – Lille’s Matias Fernandez-Pardo – Barcola failed to convert 15 brilliant chances during league matches. His shot conversion rate of 16.4% was better, but this is a trend which should worry Reds supporters.How does Barcola compare to Premier League players?In Premier League terms, Barcola’s 15 big chances missed would have put him towards the top of that particular list as well.He would have been well behind the likes of Erling Haaland – who missed a whopping 30 big chances despite scoring 27 times – as well as second top scorer Igor Thiago, Jean-Philippe Mateta and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (all 20) and Ollie Watkins (19).Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty ImagesBut Barcola would have been next up, joint sixth with Brentford’s Kevin Schade on 15 big chances missed.Again, both Ekitike and Salah were not far behind on 11 each, illustrating just how wasteful Liverpool’s attack was last season.With Nunez notorious for being a poor finisher as well, it has felt like a long time since Liverpool have had clinical players at the top end of the pitch.Alexander Isak should hopefully buck the trend if he can stay fit, but in Barcola Liverpool look to have got themselves another player who struggles to hit the target.
He is still young, and the hope will obviously be that this can get better, but it will have to if he is to justify his price tag. Join Our NewsletterReceive a digest of our best Liverpool content each week direct to your mailbox