Liverpool’s shifting priorities show how Cody Gakpo is the anti-Darwin Nunez
The Dutch forward scored twice against LASK but looks fifth-choice when all are fit at Anfield
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Your support makes all the difference.There are those who are left in the wreckage of Darwin Nunez’s trail of destruction. They can include opposing goalkeepers and defenders, mown down by the rampaging bull, or supporters behind the goals, at risk from wayward shots. Their number also includes the forward who became Liverpool’s anti-Nunez.
There is something understated about Cody Gakpo. He can be the least explosive of Jurgen Klopp’s attackers. He endeared himself to the Liverpool manager by immediately grasping his tactical demands, whereas it took Nunez time. The Uruguayan is the proper No.9; if the Dutchman arrived from PSV Eindhoven as a left winger, he spent much of his first few months at Anfield as a false nine. Liverpool will not have another Roberto Firmino but Gakpo was shaping up as his successor last season.
This year, however, he may have a less enviable status. If Nunez can be electric in full flight, he has overtaken Gakpo. There was a point when Klopp had a definitive front three who were guaranteed starters. Then Diogo Jota became the interloper, making it a question of three from four. As Firmino followed Sadio Mane to the exit, as Gakpo, Nunez and Luis Diaz made the journey from Anfield, Klopp was left plucking three from five: or, with Mohamed Salah’s pre-eminence entrenched, two from four.
And Gakpo, once among those favoured pair, has started to look the fifth-choice forward. Even with Jota out injured for a few weeks, he seems first reserve. A brace against LASK on Thursday felt timely, but scarcely seemed to alter Klopp’s thinking. Liverpool enter a period of eight games in 23 days and Gakpo will feature regularly - but perhaps not as a starter when it matters most.
“We have already Diogo who is not in, so that is not helpful and we have to share these kind of minutes with different players and they have to perform - not always 90 [minutes] but 60 or 70 at full throttle,” said Klopp. “Darwin is in a top moment and that didn’t change, he is super important for us. He didn’t start tonight and Cody scored twice. Fantastic. Does that mean he has to start the next five games in a row? Cody doesn’t expect [that]. They have to score, that is the job, that is what they want but it is not that I have sleepless nights and don’t know who to start. It is not that much a choice, to be honest.”
Which seemed to confirm that Nunez, who spent some of the second half of last season as a substitute and other parts as an ersatz striker, is now the spearhead. Certainly, Klopp’s Premier League selections suggest Gakpo is the odd man out, and that the pecking order has changed.
For the last four games, the attacking trio have been Salah, Nunez and Jota, but it came during a period when Diaz’s season was interrupted when his father was kidnapped. With the Portuguese sidelined now and the Colombian reunited with his family on Merseyside, he looks ready to reclaim the place he lost after a decisive showing in the Merseyside derby. A wonderful header against LASK was evidence of his ability; perhaps as pertinently, Gakpo, despite his versatility, has not looked dynamic enough to be a true Klopp winger. Diaz is.
And an examination of his season is instructive. Three of his six league starts have come in midfield. Indeed, his capacity to drop deep proved useful last season: with Liverpool struggling in midfield, Klopp found it hard to accommodate Nunez in a central role, and liked the January arrival’s ability to help out there. For three games when Klopp has found himself short of midfield options, he has trusted Gakpo there.
But in his three starts in attack, he has a respectable two goals – to add to two each in the Carabao Cup and Europa League – but has been taken off inside an hour in each. He has not started as a forward in the Premier League since the 2-1 defeat to Tottenham. He only lasted 45 minutes then, scored but was hurt.
His other start as a striker came at Newcastle; it feels among the most significant matches of Liverpool’s campaign for several reasons.
They were 1-0 down with 10 men when Gakpo came off – through no fault of his own, they have been depleted in two of the three games he has begun in attack – and won 2-1 with a devastating brace from the substitute Nunez.
It was the start of the Uruguayan’s surge into the premier position in Klopp’s thinking. If Gakpo benefited from not being Nunez in spring, now he is suffering from it in winter. Maybe, like many a defender, he has been powerless to halt Nunez in full flight.
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