Liverpool's Imbalanced Squad Raises Doubts After £200m Spending

Liverpool have just spent another £200m-plus, a bigger net outlay than last summer, and yet Andoni Iraola walks away from this window with a squad that raises as many doubts as it does expectations.

The numbers scream ambition. The balance does not.

A lopsided attack after Salah

Jamie Carragher did not bother dressing it up. "It does not look like a balanced squad," he told Sky Sports. "Liverpool are short in the full-back areas and probably a midfield player as well."

That is despite the headline arrival: Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain for £123m. A huge fee, a huge talent, and yet his signing cuts right to the heart of the structural concern.

Liverpool have just lost Mohamed Salah, the most devastating left-footed right-winger the Premier League has seen. Their answer? Stockpile players who prefer the opposite side.

"Liverpool have not got a real out-and-out right-sided attacker," Carragher said. "We have not got anybody with a left foot on that right side, like Mo Salah. I am disappointed. I am not quite sure what we are going to do on that right wing right now."

Barcola can roam. He can play across the front line. But a fee of that size demands he plays where he is most dangerous, and it is a stretch to argue that is on the right.

Cody Gakpo has been used on the left. Florian Wirtz has drifted there. Hugo Ekitike has seen time in that channel too. Rio Ngumoha broke through on that flank as well, even if pre-season saw him tested on the other side. Victor Munoz, signed after just one top-flight season, is another natural left winger.

The left side brims with options. The right, after Salah, looks like an afterthought.

It is not enough to condemn the entire recruitment strategy. Curiosity, not catastrophe. But the pattern is clear: Liverpool are heavy in some areas, glaringly light in others.

Full-backs at the heart of the problem

The same imbalance runs through the back line.

When Jeremie Frimpong arrived last summer, Liverpool were quick to insist he was not a direct replacement for Trent Alexander-Arnold at right-back. Two games into this season, that is exactly where the Netherlands international has been stationed.

With Conor Bradley injured, Frimpong is the closest thing Iraola has to a specialist in that role. Suggestions that Dominik Szoboszlai could fill in there feel like a workaround, not a solution. Shifting a centre-back wide would be even more of a compromise, especially in a system that leans so heavily on its full-backs.

And Iraola’s system does exactly that. The numbers show it. Frimpong and Milos Kerkez both sit among the top three players in the Premier League for sprints so far. The only man ahead of them? Adrien Truffert, bombing on for Iraola’s old club, Bournemouth.

This is not a quirk. It is a principle.

Look at Liverpool’s average positions in their first two league games and compare them to that title-winning season under Arne Slot. The full-backs fly forward, often together, stretching the pitch and flooding attacks. That leaves the midfield with a heavy burden: cover the space, kill the counters, protect the centre-backs.

Right now, that looks like a fault line.

Ryan Gravenberch once rose to that challenge under Slot. Alexis Mac Allister, though, has shown a clear dip in physical sharpness over the last 18 months. Iraola needs someone to patrol that space, to break up transitions, to sense danger early. Does he have that player?

Midfield structure under strain

The question goes deeper than personnel. It cuts into Iraola’s core idea.

Is he even looking for a classic holding midfielder? At Bournemouth, he demanded aggression, not caution. Alex Scott spoke about being "very aggressive" out of possession. Tyler Adams talked about the belief that they would win the ball high up the pitch.

That front-foot mindset has already left scars at Liverpool.

"I do not believe that midfield can function with the personnel in there," Carragher warned. "For me, it does not work. And it is not just about personnel, it is the structure the manager is asking for."

Within five minutes of the opening Premier League game, Liverpool’s rest defence was laid bare. Full-backs high, centre-backs deep, and nobody patrolling the gap in between. Newcastle walked through that space and scored.

Given how much licence the full-backs have, and with Virgil van Dijk increasingly inclined to drop rather than step up, that vulnerability will not simply vanish with time. It feels baked into the current set-up.

So Iraola finds himself with Liverpool’s most expensive squad in history — and arguably the most obviously flawed group the club has fielded in a decade.

Searching for answers on the pitch

If the market is closed, the solutions must come from within. That means compromise.

"You do not want to lose the offensive side, the fluidity, the arrivals with numbers, but obviously we were punished the other day, especially in the first goal," Carragher said.

"We did not do a proper lockdown. But there is a balance. We cannot go from one way where we send a lot of people forward to keeping everyone back so we do not arrive with numbers. I do not want to tell Ryan Gravenberch not to carry the ball or arrive in the box.

"It is a matter of identifying the situation. You cannot be with the joystick every time [controlling] the player. There are players that are very good at smelling the danger. 'I cannot risk going now. I think I have to stay.' Recognising those situations is the job."

That, ultimately, is the challenge for Iraola. Can he instil that game intelligence quickly enough, without blunting the edge that makes his football so attractive?

For now, a couple of high-scoring draws feel like the perfect snapshot of this Liverpool: thrilling going forward, exposed going back. An imbalanced, imperfect team, yes — but one that might yet decide whether this season is remembered for chaos, or for a title charge built on the brink.