Bradley Barcola celebrates scoring for Liverpool against LASK (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
Former Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock has played down Bradley Barcola’s hat-trick heroics in the Champions League win over LASK on Wednesday night.
The French winger finally got off the mark for Liverpool since his summer transfer from Paris Saint-Germain, netting three of the Reds’ six goals in Austria.
Barcola needed a performance like this after a slow start to life at Anfield, but Warnock insists the challenge for him now is to follow this up with a strong performance in the next Premier League game against Brentford.
In fairness, and with all due respect, LASK are not the strongest team Liverpool are going to come up against this season, so Barcola has to be ready for far bigger challenges than this if he is to be a success for the Merseyside giants.
Stephen Warnock on Bradley Barcola’s hat-trick
Discussing Barcola’s hat-trick, Warnock made it clear that this was really just a confidence-building exercise for the 24-year-old, and there’s really not that much more to be read into it than that.
“Bradley Barcola had the run of his full-back. I think the full-back he was playing against was taken off at half-time – that tells you everything,” Warnock said, as quoted by BBC Sport.
“I don’t read too much into it because I expect Liverpool to go there and win and win comfortably. The big question is Brentford away on Saturday. Can Barcola do that against Brentford because that’s what they have bought him for. It’s to play big games away from home, not LASK away from home. That’s essentially a confidence building exercise for him.
“Also he hasn’t played that much football this season, so it’s about getting him fitter and sharper but the acid test will be Brentford away.”
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