Making sense of Cody Gakpo at Liverpool

Since his £37 million move from PSV Eindhoven, Cody Gakpo has never quite fit in at Liverpool, but there is way too much potential in the Dutchman to cast him off.

Liverpool’s public pursuit of Cody Gakpo was, even by their standards, swift: within the space of an hour on Boxing Day 2022, the club had gone from reports of advanced talks with PSV Eindhoven to the Eredivisie side confirming a deal had been agreed.

It was a surprise signing, on the back of a World Cup in which he started every game for Louis van Gaal’s Netherlands, and one which came midway through a middling season for Jürgen Klopp’s side.

In a season-and-a-half since, Gakpo has played 76 times for Liverpool – all but six possible games, including the 3-1 loss to Brentford days after his arrival. No player has featured in more fixtures for the club in that time, with Harvey Elliott coming closest with 72.

Yet his role within the squad is still something of a mystery. There is clearly immense faith in Gakpo, but rarely in a defined position; instead, Klopp has employed his No. 18 as a utility man.

At first, he operated in the Roberto Firmino role, thriving in dropping deep as an expansive centre-forward. But with more responsibility afforded to Darwin Núñez, Gakpo’s appearances have more increasingly come out wide, on either the left or right, while Klopp even used him in midfield on nine occasions.

That, by the manager’s own admission, clipped Gakpo’s wings. “Cody had a bit of a struggle in between the season, it was more my fault,” the manager explained in February. “We spoke about can Cody play a midfield position for us, yes he can in different moments. Is it his position? I would say no.

“The offensive part of the role he can definitely play, but with the defensive things which he was not used to, that cost him a bit of confidence in moments, you could see that. The boy came here and was flying from day one pretty much and then all of a sudden you saw, OK that’s now not exactly the same. These kinds of things happen.”

Klopp added: “If you ask Cody he would not say it’s the best season of his life, but we all know how good a player he is and he’s always a threat.”

The discourse as Gakpo’s first full season comes to a close, though, is that Liverpool are yet to truly see how good a player he is.

Quite why is a mystery, particularly given it has been suggested that it was Klopp, in his position of increased influence, who pushed for the deal rather than those within the club’s recruitment team. The manager claimed that an agreement was pushed through in January, rather than the summer as is usually preferred, out of a fear that Gakpo’s form could price them out by that point.

Gakpo will no doubt express gratitude for his time spent under Klopp, but as the manager prepares to depart at the end of the season there is a sense that, while he may have wanted the Dutchman, he never had a firm plan in place for him.

With Liverpool at a crossroads this summer, then, Gakpo could be held up as one of those players whose future will come into question – particularly if there is a desire to raise funds for the transfer market.

But in the arriving Arne Slot, who will take over when Klopp moves on, Gakpo could find himself in the hands of a head coach able to make sense of him.

Gakpo and Slot have already crossed paths, after all: once when the coach was in charge of AZ Alkmaar and three times after he had switched to the Feyenoord dugout. Those three meetings between PSV and Feyenoord should be most instructive when it comes to Gakpo’s obvious role in a new-look Liverpool.

Gakpo started all three of those clashes in his natural position on the left wing, wearing the captain’s armband and coming away with three goals and three assists.

His first of those three goals saw him peel off right-back Lutsharel Geertruida, touch down a long ball on the charge with his right foot and fire home with his left; his second, in the same 2-2 draw at De Kuip, saw him ghost into the box in a sharp one-two with Eran Zahavi before a finesse finish with his right.

In the 4-3 home win at the start of his final half-season in Eindhoven, he again finished with his right, this time after being found by Xavi Simons in space on the edge of the box. There was also a hat-trick of assists: a corner turned home by Everton loanee Jarrad Branthwaite; a floated cross for Guus Til; and then another corner headed in by Armando Obispo for the eventual winner.

Slot witnessed firsthand how effective Gakpo can be in the right role. Of his 159 appearances for PSV, 118 of those came as a left winger (74.2%). Of his 55 goals, 47 were from the left (85.5%) and of his 50 assists, the same role brought 42 (84%). Conversely, at Liverpool, only 14 appearances (18.4%), three goals (14.3%) and three assists (37.5%) have come on the left flank.

Converting a 6’3”, set-piece-taking left winger from the Eredivisie to a ball-carrying, chance-creating No. 9 in the Premier League may have been a bright idea in practice, but it is certainly debatable whether it has worked out.

There is no guarantee that a Dutch manager joining the club will spell a boost in fortunes for one of its Dutch players, but there is a convincing case for Gakpo to feature more prominently under Slot – particularly as his assistant, Sipke Hulshoff, already works with the 24-year-old as part of the Netherlands national team staff.

With speculation over Luis Díaz’s long-term future, it could even be that a first-choice starting spot opens up on the left in Slot’s favoured 4-2-3-1.

(Cover Image from IMAGO)

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