Bradley Barcola picked a fine moment to silence the questions. The France forward scored the first hat-trick of his career on his 238th appearance across club and country, and it carried Liverpool to a 6-3 Champions League win away to LASK in Linz.
The build-up had been dominated by talk of Barcola and Florian Wirtz. On the eve of the match, manager Andoni Iraola was repeatedly asked about the fortunes of the pair, both of whom had faced pressure to start delivering after stuttering openings to their individual campaigns given the sums invested in them — £123m on Barcola and £116m on Wirtz. Iraola stood by his players, insisting he trusted them “100%” and that his focus was on the collective rather than individual statistics.
Both responded. Wirtz produced a fine display in the Austrian city and registered an assist, but the night belonged to Barcola, whose three goals proved the difference as Liverpool returned to winning ways following their 3-0 defeat by Manchester City on Sunday. He scored twice before the break with fine finishes, one with his right foot and one with his left, before adding a tap-in after the interval. In truth, he could have had more given the quality of his performance.
A little over 24 hours after defending his players, Iraola was speaking with a smile on his face. “I’m really happy for Bradley,” he said. “You were asking me yesterday about him not making the numbers and [the same with] Florian and I think both of them today played really, really well. I think they made a difference.”
He added: “Bradley was a threat, always when one-on-one [and] certainly in behind. He helped us a lot to control the game, finding the pockets. I am happy for both of them. I think for their confidence it’s very good. I think they feel now that we trust them a lot. I think it’s going to be very good, very good for them.”
On what the night could mean for Barcola, Iraola said: “I think he has to enjoy this [as] to score a hat-trick in the Champions League is always very difficult. Even yesterday in training, I could feel he was very lively. Sometimes you feel these things [are going to happen]. We were feeling he was in a good place going into the game.”
Liverpool were relentless in the first half, racing into a three-goal lead and threatening more. Their 19 shots by half-time were the most on record since 2003-04 by any team in the first half of a Champions League away match. If there was a criticism, it was a touch of complacency after the break, with three goals conceded after the hour mark — though by then the job was all but done.
There were other positives. Both full-backs came into the side and performed well: Jeremie Frimpong scored and registered two assists, while Kostas Tsimikas added two assists of his own. Ronald Araujo scored his first goal for the club since joining in the summer, and Lewis Koumas got the goal his display deserved in the second half. The 21-year-old also had two goals ruled out for offside, but his first-half assist for Barcola made him the youngest player to score and assist in a Champions League match for Liverpool at 21 years and 25 days, beating Steven Gerrard’s previous mark of 21 years and 139 days against Dynamo Kyiv in 2001.
Liverpool will also know they are unlikely to get many easier assignments this season. LASK came into the game winless in their last four matches, and the scale of the home side’s passivity was noted by Stephen Warnock on 5 Live. “What do you take from that? It’s very difficult because the game was very passive for large periods,” he said. “There were parts where I am watching Trey Nyoni in midfield and he has literally got no pressure on him at all, he is picking passes off. Barcola has got the run of his full-back who was taken off at half-time, which tells you everything. I don’t read too much into it, because I expected Liverpool to go there and win, and win comfortably.”
Warnock believes the real measure of Barcola will come at Brentford on Saturday, with the Bees fourth in the table and unbeaten in the league. “Can Barcola do that again, away at Brentford, because that is what they have essentially bought him for, to play in big games away from home,” he said. “He hasn’t played that much football this season so [this game] was about getting minutes in his legs and getting him fit and getting him sharper. The acid test will be Brentford away.”