Liverpool's Rebuild Under Iraola: Targeting Adam Wharton

Liverpool’s rebuild under Andoni Iraola is gathering pace, and the next target on their radar comes from closer to home. According to GIVEMESPORT’s Ben Jacobs, the club “really appreciate” Crystal Palace midfielder Adam Wharton and are weighing a summer move for the 20-year-old.

This is not a minor tweak. It is a reset.

Iraola Backed to Tear Up the Template

Arne Slot’s sacking, coming so soon after delivering a Premier League title in his first season, stunned much of the game. Liverpool did not linger in the fallout. Iraola was confirmed quickly, and the message from the board is already clear: he will be backed, heavily, in the market.

The need is obvious. Liverpool regressed sharply this past campaign, slipping from champions to a side that leaked goals at a rate never seen before in their Premier League era. The spine frayed, the edges dulled, and the squad that once looked deep suddenly felt thin.

The departures of Andy Robertson, Mohamed Salah and Ibrahima Konaté rip chunks out of a dressing room that had been built on continuity. Three pillars gone. Three holes to fill, with more questions elsewhere.

Out wide, the drop-off is stark. Salah’s exit leaves a void no teenager should be asked to carry alone. Rio Ngumoha, just 17, is still being eased into senior football, and Liverpool know they must add proven quality on the flanks if Iraola’s high-energy, front-foot game is to take hold.

RB Leipzig’s Yan Diomande has already emerged as the preferred heir to Salah. At 19, he is viewed as the long-term solution on the right, and some reports suggest personal terms are in place. The problem lies with Leipzig’s stance: they want more than £100m and show no sign of softening.

Liverpool, though, are not limiting their rebuild to the forward line.

Midfield Under the Microscope

The centre of the pitch, once the engine of Liverpool’s dominance, no longer purrs with the same authority. Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister both struggled to reproduce the consistency and influence of previous seasons during the 2025–26 campaign. The control slipped, the press broke, the gaps widened.

Dominik Szoboszlai remains one of the first names on Iraola’s team sheet, a rare constant in a shifting landscape. Yet even with the Hungarian at the heart of it, Liverpool know they need another midfielder who can dictate games, carry the ball and press with intelligence.

That is where Wharton enters the frame.

Speaking on talkSPORT, Jacobs pinpointed the Palace youngster as a name to watch, stating: “Keep an eye on central midfield. Adam Wharton is a player really appreciated by Liverpool.”

Wharton’s rise at Selhurst Park has been rapid. Under Oliver Glasner, he has developed into a metronome in possession and a sharp reader of danger without the ball. Glasner recently went as far as to call him “one of the best midfielders in the world”, a bold line that underlines the esteem in which he is held within the club.

Palace, preparing for Europa League football next season, hold a strong hand. Wharton still has three years left on his contract, and they are under no pressure to sell. Even so, his omission from Thomas Tuchel’s England squad has triggered speculation over his next step, with bigger clubs circling and the player suddenly at the centre of a very different conversation.

If Liverpool move, they will have to pay.

Big Fees, Bigger Expectations

This would not be a one-off splurge. Liverpool have already shown a willingness to operate in the £100m bracket, bringing in Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak for nine-figure sums last summer. Those deals signalled a shift in strategy: targeted, elite-level additions rather than spreading the budget across multiple mid-range options.

The pattern looks set to continue.

Diomande’s price is expected to soar beyond £100m if Leipzig get their way. On top of that, Liverpool have been linked with Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League winner Bradley Barcola and Bournemouth winger Rayan, both valued at more than £100m by their clubs.

Layer a move for Wharton onto that, and the scale of the project becomes clear. Iraola is not inheriting a squad in need of a light refresh; he is fronting a full-scale retooling of Liverpool’s core.

Attack, defence, midfield – all are under review. The back line, which conceded a club-record number of goals in a Premier League season, demands surgery. The forward line must evolve without Salah. And in the middle of it all, Liverpool see Wharton as a potential long-term anchor for the next version of this team.

The question now is simple: how far are they prepared to go, and how much are they willing to spend, to make Iraola’s Liverpool look like his team rather than someone else’s legacy?