17-pass Liverpool player was ‘virtually anonymous’ v Fenerbahce; it’ll be a ‘concern’ for Iraola

One Liverpool player was accused of being ‘virtually anonymous’ in the Reds’ 3-2 defeat to Fenerbahce in the Champions League on Wednesday.

Andoni Iraola overhauled his attack for the game in Istanbul with a reshuffle which saw Bradley Barcola deployed in an unfamiliar centre-forward role as Alexander Isak began on the substitutes’ bench.

The Swedish marksman came on as part of a triple change in the 66th minute and scored with his first touch, but that goal would ultimately count for nothing as the home side struck twice more to secure victory.

Barcola was ‘virtually anonymous’ for Liverpool tonight

Barcola stayed on the pitch for the full 90 minutes at the Sukru Saracoglu Stadium, but his performance came in for criticism from Liverpool Echo reporter Paul Gorst.

The journalist gave the France international a lowly 4/10 in his post-match player ratings as he wrote: ‘Virtually anonymous in that centre-forward role that is unfamiliar to him. Glanced one header wide. Moved wide with 25 minutes to go but still struggled. This was a concern.’

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A frustrating night for Barcola and Liverpool

Iraola has shown that he likes his attackers to be flexible enough to play anywhere across the forward line, but the experiment of playing Barcola in the number 9 role didn’t work.

The Frenchman was unable to get on the end of a teasing cross from Joe Gomez in the way that a more natural poacher like Isak might’ve done, and he’ll feel that he should’ve done better with a glancing header shortly before half-time.

He did prompt one good save from Ederson after the interval, but on the whole the 24-year-old was disappointingly peripheral, as the figures below from Sofascore would suggest.

We fully expect Isak to be restored at centre-forward for the visit to Crystal Palace on Sunday, but it’ll be interesting to see whether Barcola reverts to a wide role or is omitted from the starting XI after a subdued display tonight.

On this evidence, we don’t envisage him being asked to lead the line again any time soon.