Champions League: Barcola hat-trick ends his six-match wait as Liverpool thrash LASK 6-3

Six matches without a goal, then three in one evening. Bradley Barcola opened his account on Wednesday at the Raiffeisen Arena, and Liverpool beat LASK Linz 6-3 on the second league-phase matchday. His goals came in the 24th, 37th and 66th minutes: a first career hat-trick, a month and a half after his move from PSG.

The first showed how Liverpool build: Ngumoha’s work on the right wing, Lewis Koumas’s cutback, the former Parisian finishing. The third arrived at the back post, from a low cross by Jeremie Frimpong. Ronald Araújo (22nd, his first goal for the club), Frimpong (51st) and Koumas (72nd) completed the score, while LASK scored three times in the second half.

A month and a half of criticism

Signed this summer for a club-record fee, put at close to 145 million euros including bonuses by RMC and at 140 by Foot Mercato, Barcola had gone six matches without a goal or an assist. Liverpool sat ninth in the Premier League after Sunday’s 0-3 defeat by Manchester City. On RMC, Daniel Riolo had compared him to Bambi: “Dribbles on tiptoe, he was barely pushing the ball.” Walid Acherchour doubted he would even start. Andoni Iraola never wavered: “We focus too much on these statistics, goals or assists,” he said before the match, repeating his “100% confidence”.

What the hat-trick weighs

Across two Champions League matchdays in a Liverpool shirt, Barcola has already matched his goal tally from his last 25 appearances in the competition for PSG. It is also the first hat-trick by a Liverpool player in European competition since Luis Diaz in 2024.

Saturday at Brentford, the market has not moved

Liverpool travel to Brentford on Saturday for matchday seven, ninth in the table on nine points, against a side fourth on ten. On Monday, before the trip to Austria, a Liverpool win at Brentford was priced at 2.87 with 1xbet, up from 2.50 when the market opened. The three goals in Linz are not in that line yet.