Rumour Mongering: PSG will Reject Liverpool Opening €115M Barcola Bid

After spending half a billion on flashy new signings last summer, Liverpool somehow ended up with a thinner and more unbalanced squad than they started with. Now, after losing key veterans Mohamed Salah, Ibrahima Konaté, and Andy Robertson, if the 2026-27 season kicked off today they would be even weaker still.

For sporting director Richard Hughes and an upper management team handed a title-calibre squad back in 2024, it’s hard to cast that as anything other than utter and abject failure. They’ve still got a few weeks to try to salvage things for new manager Andoni Iraola, though—and, perhaps, for their reputations moving if they even care about that given Hughes is expected to depart soon for a job in Saudi Arabia.

Key to that will be if they can get a star winger signing across the line to bring in the so-called Mo Salah replacement. And all signs point to Bradley Barcola as the intended target for that role, at least now that Yan Diomande has signed for Real Madrid after hoodwinking Hughes and using the Reds as leverage to get his dream move.

After spinning their wheels on that front for the past six weeks, being in touch with Barcola’s representatives going back a couple of years, and regularly talking transfers with Paris Saint-Germain, it appears that they are finally set to send in a formal opening bid of €115M (£100M).

According to L’Equipe, that offer will be rejected. Which makes you wonder what anyone here is playing at, really. The Reds have been working on this transfer for ages now, PSG have brought in their presumed Barcola replacements, and the player wants out and has made clear he won’t sign a new contract with the Ligue 1 club.

But sure, let’s put in a monster bid that will be rejected and keep dragging this out for a few more weeks before either giving up and not getting a Salah replacement (or at least not getting one who’s actually at the same level as Salah in the present after Liverpool agreed to mutually terminate his contract so he could join Trabzonspor on a free) or overpaying. Sounds like a solid plan.

For whatever it’s worth, while the French paper of record says €115M (£100M) isn’t enough to get PSG to let go of a player who wants out, won’t sign a new deal, and who they’ve already signed replacements for, they do say that Barcola would be sold for €150M (£128M) before any add-ons or bonuses. Good luck I guess, Richard.