Liverpool ready mega-deal to unlock £117m star

Liverpool are ready to finally unlock a £117m star. It's going to take a mega-deal to do it.

Liverpool are about to sign Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain. The Athletic are among those reporting that a deal is agreed in principle - it should be a formality from here.

There's a lot to be positive about here. For one, Barcola himself is a superstar talent who could become a genuine world-class player at Anfield. That's the primary reason for spending all this money on him.

But it's not the only reason. Signing Barcola is also a move to correct the problems of last season that saw Liverpool completely incapable of stretching teams properly.

The Reds just didn't have pace out wide, nor did they have a proper threat in behind from those areas. Mohamed Salah had a down season - the worst of his Liverpool career by far - and it left the side ridiculously predictable, with teams able to go very compact.

That, after all, is the natural strategy when there's no threat out wide. Pack the important areas in the middle of the pitch, clog the channels and you're near-impossible to score against at times.

It's something that had a massively negative effect on Florian Wirtz. The playmaker arrived for £117m from Bayer Leverkusen as one of the biggest talents in world football. However, his debut season didn't look like that.

Wirtz struggled to find space, with no runners in behind allowing for it. Teams essentially plugged all the holes he likes to play in - and it meant he was frequently dropping all the way back into midfield just to find some time on the ball.

Above is Wirtz's heatmap, per Fotmob, against Newcastle United on Sunday. It's all possession in front of the opposing midfield, with little room to move into space between the lines.

That's a massive problem. Wirtz having the ball at the centre-circle more than the inside left channel goes against why you buy him in the first place.

But a major reason for that is the lack of a wide threat. Liverpool can't pull teams about when no one is getting in behind - but Barcola fixes that. That's his game and in theory, he's the one who can create the space for Wirtz to play in and truly unlock his game.

The dream was for Salah to do that last season, of course, but his poor campaign took everyone off guard. Now, a year later, Liverpool are praying that Barcola can fill that role.