Liverpool’s transfer business is not done yet. Not by the sound of it.
Even as the club edges towards a huge £120m package for Bradley Barcola from PSG, the recruitment team is still scouring the market for a midfielder, with Monaco’s Lamine Camara high on the list of admirers.
This isn’t a luxury search. It’s starting to look like a necessity.
A title-winning midfield with a fault line
Dominik Szoboszlai and Ryan Gravenberch helped drive Liverpool to the 2024/25 title, a midfield built on power, vertical runs and relentless attacking intent. It was thrilling. It was brave. It was also, at times, wide open.
The 2-2 draw with Newcastle at the weekend laid that bare. When Liverpool lost the ball, the centre of the pitch felt exposed, the distances too big, the protection in front of the defence too thin. For all the attacking sparkle, there’s a sense that the balance isn’t quite right.
So the debate inside the club is obvious: if you’re already committing huge money to Barcola, can you still afford – financially and structurally – to bring in a specialist midfielder without leaving the forward line short?
Liverpool are at that point in a rebuild where every signing shapes the next two or three windows. Get this one wrong, and you’re patching again next summer.
The Camara question
Into that conversation walks Lamine Camara.
The 22-year-old has caught Liverpool’s eye for one simple reason: he does the dirty work and still plays. If the brief is “a midfielder with natural defensive instincts who doesn’t kill your rhythm on the ball”, Camara fits it.
The numbers from his 2025/26 Ligue 1 campaign with Monaco tell the story.
- Per 90 minutes, he wins 6.56 duels, placing him in the 92nd percentile.
- He comes out on top in 56% of those duels, a strong 78th percentile figure.
- He averages 5.69 defensive contributions (73rd percentile) and 7.68 recoveries (93rd percentile).
- He has 1.02 possessions won in the final third, which puts him in the 95th percentile.
Those are the metrics of a midfielder who reads danger early, bites into challenges and then keeps his team on the front foot.
But he’s not just a breaker of play. On the ball, Camara’s profile is just as striking.
- He posts 0.21 expected assists per 90 (93rd percentile).
- He creates 1.7 chances per game (89th percentile).
- He has 0.39 big chances (91st percentile).
- He racked up 82.71 touches (92nd percentile).
That is a player heavily involved in build-up, capable of threading passes and sustaining attacks rather than simply handing the ball off and retreating.
For a coach like Andoni Iraola, who demands intensity without sacrificing fluency, that blend is gold dust.
Price, priorities and a tight window
Quality, though, comes at a cost.
Monaco have already turned down a £35m bid from Crystal Palace, according to the BBC. Other reports suggest the Ligue 1 club value Camara somewhere in the £42.8m–£51.4m range. For a 22-year-old with those numbers and that profile, it’s not an outrageous valuation, but it is a serious commitment on top of the Barcola outlay.
Complicating matters, recent reporting around Liverpool’s business points to a cap of two further signings this summer. If Barcola is one, that leaves a single slot for either another forward or the kind of midfielder who can shield a title-winning side and extend its cycle.
Do you double down on firepower in the front line, giving Iraola a complete array of attacking options? Or do you sacrifice some of that depth to secure a midfielder who might unlock a more stable, sustainable version of this Liverpool team?
Camara, with his blend of bite and composure, looks like an option worth serious consideration. The question now is whether Liverpool see him as the missing piece – or as the signing that would force them to leave their forward line one body light in a season where margins at the top will be razor thin.
