Bradley Barcola has only played around half an hour of Premier League football for Liverpool.
And he has already gone to the top of the speed charts.
That is some introduction.
Barcola reached a top speed of 35.9km/h (22.3mph) during his Liverpool debut against Ipswich, making him the fastest player recorded in the Premier League so far this season.
He only came on in the second half of Liverpool’s 2-0 victory.
He had barely got started.
And yet he has already given Liverpool supporters a glimpse of something this team has been crying out for:
Explosiveness.
Liverpool have some serious pace now
This is what really excites me.
Barcola isn’t the only player in this Liverpool squad who can absolutely fly.
According to the available speed data, Barcola leads Liverpool this season at 35.9km/h, followed by Alexander Isak and Victor Muñoz at 34.8km/h, with Jeremie Frimpong also among the quicker players.
That gives Andoni Iraola some serious options when Liverpool win the ball and want to attack quickly.
Imagine a team winning possession in midfield and immediately having Barcola sprinting down one side, Isak running through the middle and another attacker arriving from the opposite flank.
Defenders are going to have a problem.
Barcola already looks like exactly what Liverpool needed
One of my biggest concerns before Barcola arrived was that Liverpool could sometimes look a little predictable.
We could dominate possession without necessarily having enough players capable of simply taking the ball and terrifying a defender.
Barcola changes that.
He wants to run at people.
He wants to get in behind.
He wants the ball played into space.
And once he gets going, good luck catching him.
Iraola admitted after the Ipswich game that Barcola was a constant threat when carrying the ball.
That is exactly what Liverpool paid so much money for.
And this was only his first appearance
This is the really exciting part.
Barcola hadn’t played a competitive match for Liverpool before Ipswich and had not had a full pre-season with the club, so Iraola was always going to manage his minutes carefully.
He still managed to record the fastest speed in the league.
Imagine what he looks like when he’s fully fit and completely settled into this team.
He’ll understand where Isak wants the ball.
He’ll understand Wirtz’s movement.
He’ll develop an understanding with Gakpo.
And his teammates will become more accustomed to finding those runs in behind.
We saw one example at Ipswich when Barcola broke forward and eventually created an opportunity for Gakpo.
It didn’t result in a goal.
But the warning was there.
Just imagine Barcola and Isak together
This is what I’m really looking forward to.
Isak is an incredible footballer, but he needs service.
Barcola can provide a completely different kind of threat.
If defenders push up, Barcola can run in behind.
If they drop deep to protect against his pace, Isak can find pockets of space.
If they concentrate on Isak, Barcola can attack the full-back.
And if they try to deal with both?
That’s where Florian Wirtz can come into the game.
Suddenly Liverpool have several different ways of hurting teams.
Liverpool have added serious explosiveness
And this is why I’m becoming increasingly excited about Barcola.
It isn’t just about his top speed.
It’s about what that speed does to an opposition defence.
Pace creates fear.
It makes defenders drop deeper.
It creates space between the lines.
It gives midfielders another passing option.
It turns ordinary counter-attacks into dangerous ones.
And Liverpool now have that weapon.
Barcola is only getting started
We shouldn’t get carried away after 30 minutes.
He’s still adapting to Iraola’s system.
He’s still building his fitness.
And he still has to prove that he can produce consistently over an entire Premier League season.
But that debut was encouraging.
35.9km/h.
Fastest player in the Premier League so far this season.
And he did it after only coming on for around half an hour.
Liverpool already had Isak.
They now have Barcola.
They have Wirtz.
They have Gakpo.
They have Muñoz.
And they have some serious pace throughout the squad.
Liverpool have added some serious explosiveness.
And I can’t wait to see what happens when Iraola really lets Barcola loose.
Jamie (The Kopite View)
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