Current top scorer in Ligue 1 and PSG in all competitions, with 8 goals, can Bradley Barcola become a striker scoring 25-30 goals per season, or even more? One of his trainers believes it and puts forward several arguments.
With Kylian Mbappé gone, PSG lost around forty goals per season and Luis Enrique explained at the start of the season his wish to see this number of goals distributed between his different attackers. For the moment, Bradley Barcola is PSG's top scorer with 8 goals already this season, all in Ligue 1, making him the top scorer in the championship after 9 days.
The 22-year-old Parisian left winger has scored twice as many goals as Ousmane Dembélé and Lee Kang-in, who have 4 goals each (all in Ligue 1 as well). In today's edition, L'Equipe asks itself the question of whether Barcola can be consistent over time and finish the season around the 30-goal mark.
Barcola works on his accuracy in front of goal
According to the sports daily, the French international in any case has the ambition to be even fairer in front of goal and is doing specific video analysis work to this end as well as specific workshops in training. One of his trainers at OL, Jean-François Vulliez, also reminded the newspaper that Barcola was already scoring a lot among young people.
“You shouldn't imagine that Bradley only started scoring goals this season. He's someone who, as a youth player, already scored a lot, but even more so in the U19s and then in the reserves. The difference, we felt at the time that there was also a form of priority for the pass. Today, I sense greater risk-taking in his strikes. He developed his panel »he confides.
“In the next two years, he can reach 25 goals per season”
The Barcola trainer also believes that his physiology will further evolve and that this development will allow him to quickly approach the mark of 25 goals per season: “In the next two years, he can reach 25 goals per season. Its physiological characteristics will further develop. He will go faster in his sequences of strikes, for example. »
“Then, the experience with high-level attackers and that accumulated in matches will serve him well. So he can have this regularity around 25 goals”estimates Vulliez. Doing a lot of damage on his left wing, even if he sometimes experiences difficulties in one-on-one situations like against Amir Murillo last Sunday, could Barcola also have a future in the center?
A future in the axis for Barcola?
Luis Enrique has already mentioned this hypothesis at a press conference in recent months, but citing Barcola among several other options, and in fact, the Spaniard has never used him up front this season, despite the absence of Gonçalo Ramos and the little confidence he places in Randal Kolo Muani.
It is therefore from the left, where he is also starting to establish himself in the French team, that Barcola should continue to take off in the coming months. With also the aim of finally being more decisive in the Champions League, a competition in which he remains stuck at one unit in 13 appearances.
