Cody Gakpo fills an immediate need for Liverpool but could be Jurgen Klopp’s next long-term central project

Cody Gakpo is in, the latest Liverpool addition and the third part of a renewal of the front line which, for most of Jurgen Klopp’s tenure, had been dominated by the triumvirate of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah.

Only the latter now remains an immovable part of the Anfield attack, Mane departed and Firmino both injured and approaching the end of his contract. As such, the regeneration has come on apace across 2022, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez added to the mix before Gakpo now joins too.

In the short term, he’s an obvious stop-gap addition: Diaz is sidelined, Diogo Jota too, while Nunez is needed centrally due to Firmino’s own injury absence. That leaves the left wing spot up for grabs, at least on a temporary basis.

At age 23, Gakpo is one for now as well as for the future, if he can hit new heights in consistency and impact. But, in that same future, it’s not entirely certain that he’ll fill the left flank on a go-to basis in the way that his new Colombian teammate quickly managed.

For starters, that’s Diaz’s best role, a player who has already shown himself among the elite and, soon to be 26, is coming into his prime. It’s unlikely that Liverpool will want to alter his role too much, or indeed be without him in the team. Then there’s Gakpo’s own best traits to consider, and where they are best utilised. It may well be that some of those on show with his nation at the World Cup, rather than only those with his club in the Eredivisie, give clues as to where that could be.

In some ways, left-sided Gakpo certainly fits the mould: powerful, tall, very fast, loves to dip in off the flank and shoot. But we’ve also seen - in the Europa League this season certainly, in Qatar with Netherlands too - the ball-carrying qualities he has on show right through the centre of the pitch.

While the Reds don’t play with a classic No.10 too often, the role Gakpo regularly filled for Louis van Gaal’s Oranje, it’s not entirely unheard of for someone to take up those areas during attacking play. The most common one has been Firmino dropping out of the front line, for example, alternating between centre-forward and link man in the hole, the team sometimes even operating in a very fixed diamond structure. More subtly, the right-sided No8 of the three-man midfield has frequently had licence or instruction to attack that zone, driving from deep to be an extra offensive option. It depends in part on who is playing, but at its best, the Liverpool final third has been a rotating cast of non-fixed parts, each capable of playing the final pass or making the final run.

Gakpo, creator and scorer supreme both in his home nation and for his home nation, has shown himself eminently capable of doing both.

His arrival on Merseyside means he departs the Eredivisie as the league’s top scorer for the campaign, despite not having scored in the competition in his last five outings. He did, however, add six assists in that period - to top that particular chart as well.

That end product in a non-shooting capacity is clearly a big draw, and while assists themselves are not a key metric, Gakpo is also top of key passes per 90, shot creation actions per 90, dead ball deliveries per 90 leading to a shot, dribbles leading to a goal, shots which immediately lead to another shot, number of times fouled to lead to a shot...you get the picture.

It is incessant, it is from all areas of attacking output and it is most certainly time for him to step up and test that huge array of talent in a more demanding setting.

Perhaps, then, the bigger picture might be to utilise Gakpo’s ball-carrying, vision and weight of pass in a much more deliberately central way.

If Darwin Nunez ends up as the must-start goalscorer, perhaps Gakpo’s own variety of physicality - athletic, agile and excellent acceleration to go with difficult-to-stop height - lends itself to a deeper role in time. Maybe he’s not quite a 10 and certainly not quite yet a No8, but perhaps something in between in the next evolution of Klopp’s midfield.

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Within the Netherlands’ framework and with that number on his jersey, it’s how he operated in their (often long, long, long) spells out of possession: tilt to a second No8, then be the first to break into a counter-attacking shape as the No.10. More endeavour, positional play and work rate will obviously be additions to make before that’s a possibility, but it’s hardly without precedence - see fellow Dutchman and Anfield heavyweight Gini Wijnaldum for such an example of Klopp turning attacking schemer into central dominant force.

A further potential hint at his capacity for growth can be seen in the celebrations for his final goal for PSV: having made the late breakthrough he ran off, arms outstretched, wearing the captain’s armband.

The same image could be seen after a 97th-minute match-winning penalty against RKC in September, and on plenty of other occasions besides.

There’s no need to read too much into it, of course, the part-time activity of taking the armband. It can, after all, be simply given to the most talented individual at times, or the biggest ego. But it can also portray an ability to take on board extra responsibility, a trust from the coaching staff and the desire of the player to keep growing in stature.

At the heart of the team, in every manner of the word, that’s exactly what Klopp has always strived for.