Cody Gakpo Can Go Pyro

On wing or as a false nine, Gakpo can become a vital player for Liverpool

Cody Gakpo – or Goady Katpo according to Danny Murphy – has it all, bar searing pace. You need searing pace in your team, but not necessarily 11 searingly quick players.

To my eyes he started last season a bit too lean*, and did a job out of position. To me, out of position is in midfield as a no.8, whereas I think he’s a superb false 9.

But he got stronger and better as the season went on. It seemed he felt that Jürgen Klopp didn’t trust or rate him, before they belatedly sorted that out.

(* I think it was in relation to Gakpo that Dirk Kuyt said that he himself – a solid bloke with the lungs of a horse – lost 8lbs in his first year at Liverpool, it was so intense. And that was nearly 20 years ago.)

But is Gakpo a winger? And do Liverpool need Gakpo the winger? (As ever, a lot depends on the mercurial Darwin Núñez, who is either super-hot or super-cold, but who is also in fine form for his country right now.)

Plus, Arne Slot likes to introduce fresh wingers during games, to up the energy against tired defenders. The Reds have a lot of versatility, but not many true pace merchants.

For the Netherlands Gakpo clearly is a winger, as he was at PSV; but in football, and in the better teams across Europe, the evolution of the big no.9 is startling in the past few years, as I detailed in ‘Quadraphonic’**. (And Gakpo was a centre-forward at the last World Cup.)

(** available in no good book stores, just Amazon.)

At the age of 24/25, almost none of them were doing anything, or if they were, they’ve still gone up a level. Many of them are 6’3” or 6’4”, with someone like Erling Haaland an outlier, perhaps as he’s so incredibly quick as well.

Gakpo doesn’t have the searing pace that the Reds need to add (in some way or other) to the XI, but he’s not slow. For him, like Liverpool’s other attackers now, bar Darwin Núñez and the waiting-to-be-unleashed Ben Doak, it’s more a case of good pace with the ball, rather than the extra option of constantly running in behind (which someone like Anthony Gordon does, and Mo Salah used to do).

Gakpo is smart, with quick feet. He studies the game. He has good acceleration with the ball (even more so for a big man), and I’ve always liked how he picks the ball up deep and central, turns sharply and runs directly; drawing professional fouls or getting away (or being fouled and nothing being given).

In a game late last season, and in the most recent Netherlands game, he ran almost the whole length of the pitch with the ball after a smart turn, and forced a good save to deny him a 1990s-style solo goal.

Until last season, every season in his career and in every tournament with Holland he had outscored his xG, with excellent longer-range/wide-angle shooting, but also an uncanny ability to just arrive at the back-post for a tap-in. He started to find the net later in 2023/24 and has carried that form on.

As a left-sided attacker, Gakpo can solve some problems and perhaps become elite in the role for club as well as country, but I also like him as the false 9. (I also like Luis Díaz, in in different ways, but he’s also not someone who can run in behind, and his future seems unclear.)

Gakpo is not just the top scorer at the Euros, but has created more xG for others too, at 1.9 expected assists.

Had his team-mates bagged him what is essentially two assists, instead of only one due to them missing chances, he’d have five goal involvements already. He has three goals from just 0.8xG, and had a 4th ruled out for what was actually a very close call (the defender’s foot nearly played him on). He was +2.7 at the World Cup and is +2.2 at the Euros, and I think that’s his norm; last season was a bit of a blip.

To me, it feels like a player coming into his own. He’s by far the player of the tournament after four games.

So, how can he thrive back at Liverpool? What could be done to get the best from him?

**The majority of this article (and an excerpt from ‘Quadraphonic’) is for paying TTT Main Hub subscribers only.**