Liverpool did not repeat the scale of last summer\u2019s record outlay, but the club still spent heavily in the latest transfer window. Those additions have helped deliver an unbeaten opening to the campaign, with four wins and three draws before the three-week international break.<\/p>\n
The question now is how much each newcomer has contributed in the early stages of their Liverpool careers.<\/p>\n
Bradley Barcola has made five appearances and, as the club\u2019s statement signing of the summer and the second-most expensive transfer in its history, attention around him was always going to be intense. Yet there are clear reasons his start has been restrained. Arriving late from Paris Saint-Germain for a fee that could rise to \u00a3123 million ($163 million) with add-ons, he also missed pre-season under Iraola. His situation was further complicated by a late return from the World Cup and his omission from early rosters for the European champions, leaving him without any friendly or competitive action before moving. That has produced a quiet beginning, with no goal involvements from his five outings, though he is expected to improve as sharpness returns.<\/p>\n
Victor Mu\u00f1oz has taken a different route. He technically joined Liverpool as a World Cup winner without playing a minute in Spain\u2019s successful run, but his place in Luis de la Fuente\u2019s squad followed an excellent season with Osasuna. Since arriving on Merseyside, the 23-year-old has offered genuine spark across six appearances. He has not yet reached the level of Cody Gakpo early in the season, but he has still been Liverpool\u2019s second-most lively wide player. His first competitive outing brought a stoppage-time penalty that secured a draw at Newcastle United, and he followed that with a powerful equaliser against Nottingham Forest. Supporters have already seen his speed, attitude and versatility, with more expected across the rest of his debut season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool\u2019s new arrivals have made contrasting starts, with Barcola slow and Mu\u00f1oz already producing key moments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1162,180,182],"class_list":["post-20306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","tag-analytics","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}