Cody Gakpo says Liverpool must maintain their focus after extending winning run
Arne Slot’s team have made an impressive start to the season.
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Your support makes all the difference.Cody Gakpo has warned Liverpool must keep focus after making it three wins out of three in the Champions League with Wednesday’s 1-0 victory away to RB Leipzig.
Darwin Nunez’s first-half goal was enough to bring another three-point haul, although Liverpool needed big saves from Caoimhin Kelleher at the end to stay in front as Leipzig caused them plenty of problems both early in the game and at the end.
The win means that Liverpool are, alongside Aston Villa, one of only two teams to have taken maximum points from their first three Champions League games in the new format.
“Obviously it’s the Champions League, a different set-up, maybe some more difficult games,” Gakpo said.
“We started off very well but there’s a few more matches in the group stage, so we are not done yet and have to stay focused. But it shows the good start of us.”
The win saw this Liverpool side become the first in club history to win their first six away games of a season, and the first to have won 11 of their opening 12 games.
Arne Slot’s team started slowly in Germany and the hosts passed up opportunities to take the lead before Nunez poked home in the 27th minute with Liverpool’s first meaningful attack.
From then on Liverpool were able to hold possession but their failure to add to the score meant they were never in complete control, and there were nervous moments late on as Leipzig poured forward in search of an equaliser.
“I think we worked very hard. We chose good moments to counter-attack, also to attack, and I think we did very well,” Gakpo added. “Sometimes we just kept the ball as well. I think it was overall a good performance.
“At the end, we defended well. We needed Caoimh (Kelleher) and the back line to save us, but that’s also a strength of us now and we are very happy with that…
“Obviously you can play very well on the ball, but against a good opponent you know (there are) some moments in the game when maybe they have some good moments. It’s all about to not concede at those times and stay locked in – and I think that’s what we did well.
“Then, after those situations we gained control again and that’s how we mostly won this game. We should have scored more goals I think, but at the end a win is a win so (we’re) very happy.”
Nunez’s strike was only his second of the season in nine appearances. Slot said he was not too concerned with the Uruguayan’s return but was pleased with his overall contribution.
“I’m always happy when we score a goal and I’m not that much into who scores it,” the manager said. “It is always good to see all of our players scoring goals and I think in the lead-up to the goal, Cody and Mo (Salah) were just as important in the goal as Darwin was.
“What I liked from Darwin was that he was also strong, comfortable on the ball, kept the ball a lot, fighting if he had to defend, so he made it a really difficult game for the two centre-backs of Leipzig.
“And then for him scoring, I think that is always nice for a striker to be on the scoresheet.”