Liverpool's Urgent Right Flank Dilemma: Trincão's €5m Decision

Liverpool’s right flank used to pick itself. Mohamed Salah on the teamsheet, problem solved. Now it is the most urgent question facing Anfield’s new era – and the clock is already ticking on one of their clearest solutions.

A rebuild with a deadline

Liverpool are braced for another summer of reconstruction. The club have drawn up a long shortlist, but the market is crowded and expensive, and every serious Premier League rival seems to be fishing in the same pond.

Andoni Iraola will want time. Time to look at what he has, time to work through pre-season, time to decide who fits and who doesn’t. By the end of the summer, though, there can be no ambiguity. He will need a defined attack, not a collection of maybes.

One area cannot wait: the right wing.

Salah’s future has loomed over the club for months. Some supporters still cling to the idea of a late twist, a dramatic U-turn that keeps him at Anfield. The reality points elsewhere. Liverpool are planning for life without him, because they have to.

At present, the options on that side are thin. Federico Chiesa and Jeremie Frimpong are on the books as right-sided possibilities, but Chiesa’s own future is uncertain and Frimpong is not a classic wide forward in the Salah mould. Victor Munoz can operate there, yet his best work comes off the left.

So the search continues. And one name, long on Liverpool’s radar, is edging towards a decision point.

Trincão tug-of-war: €5m in the balance

In Portugal, the situation around Francisco Trincão is beginning to crystallise. According to A Bola, Al Ahli’s pursuit of the Sporting CP winger is active and serious, but the two clubs are still haggling over the numbers.

Sporting want between €50m and €60m for the 27-year-old. Al Ahli have pushed up to €45m in initial talks, even without a formal written offer, and are holding firm on their intention to drive that price down. The gap is just €5m from Sporting’s minimum stance, but neither side is blinking yet.

Negotiations are described as ongoing, slower than Atlético Madrid’s talks for Morten Hjulmand and expected to be difficult. Sporting have set their line in the sand. Al Ahli, led by sporting director Rui Pedro Braz, are trying to drag it closer to them.

What matters for Liverpool is not the fine detail of those meetings in Lisbon, but the timing. The Portuguese report suggests the window for others to intervene may close by the end of the week. If the Saudi club and Sporting find common ground, Trincão will be gone, and with him one of the most obvious Salah-style replacements on the market.

Al Ahli’s interest is not speculative. They have already spent €22m on attacking midfielder Eduard Spertsyan from Krasnodar and still want Trincão on top. That level of intent leaves little room for hesitation from elsewhere.

A winger built for Iraola’s blueprint

Strip this down to pure football and Trincão fits a lot of what Iraola wants.

The new Liverpool head coach favours forwards who can break the last line, stretch defences and then drift wide to exploit space, as Eli Junior Kroupi did so effectively during the 2025–26 season. In the middle, someone like Hugo Ekitike would suit that profile. Alexander Isak, if he were remotely gettable, would be an even more refined version of it.

On the flanks, though, Iraola demands more than just width and work rate. His wide attackers must both score and create. Trincão ticks those boxes. Last season he delivered 13 goals and 18 assists, a production line that speaks to a player comfortable both finishing moves and starting them.

He is left-footed, operating from the right, driving infield and threatening goal – the exact template Liverpool have been living off for years. In stylistic terms, he is about as close to a Salah replacement as this market is likely to offer at a realistic level.

The age profile works too. At 26, he is old enough to arrive ready-made, young enough to grow into the role over the next cycle of Liverpool’s attack.

Liverpool’s choice: act or watch

This is where the football logic collides with the market reality. Liverpool know the right side of their front line cannot be patched together for long. They know Iraola’s system leans heavily on that position. They know a player who creates 18 goals for team-mates in a season, while scoring 13 himself, does not stay available forever.

Yet they also know the price. Sporting are not budging far from €50m–€60m. Al Ahli are close enough to that figure to make a deal plausible, and determined enough to keep pushing until it happens.

The gap between both clubs is €5m. The gap for Liverpool is more fundamental: either they step into the race now, or they accept that one of the most tailored options for their new right flank will disappear into the Saudi Pro League.

In a summer where Anfield is already braced for change, the question is no longer whether they need a new right-sided forward.

It is whether they are prepared to move fast enough to secure one who looks built for the job.