With Arne Slot officially announced as new Liverpool head coach in May, there was plenty of time before his work formally got underway to predict who would benefit most from working with the man from Zwolle.
By Jack Lusby, ThisIsAnfield.com
A major factor in the club’s decision to bring him to Merseyside from Feyenoord was his ability to coax the best out of the players already at his disposal, in a system similar to that used by Jürgen Klopp, but there would always be players better suited to his vision than others.
Chief among those was Cody Gakpo – a player Slot was familiar with not only from watching the Dutch national team, but also from their brushes with each other in the Eredivisie.
Gakpo came up against Slot’s sides on four occasions while at PSV Eindhoven – once against AZ Alkmaar and then three times against Feyenoord – and the latter two of those meetings showed his sheer power as a devastating left winger.
He scored both goals for PSV in a 2-2 draw at the back end of the 2021/22 season, before scoring one and assisting the other three in a 4-3 victory early into 2022/23.
A stunning display in the latter came during a phenomenal first half of the campaign that preceded his £37 million move to Liverpool, shining under Ruud van Nistelrooy as he scored 13 and assisted 17 in 24 games – a goal or assist every 65.3 minutes – before three more goals in five games for the Netherlands at the winter World Cup in Qatar.
It was clear from his displays at PSV that Gakpo was an elite-level prospect on the left wing, but he found himself a utility man under Klopp; he played up front 49 times, in midfield for seven games, on the right wing for another seven and in his natural role only 14 times.
There should have been no surprise that his output dropped, with 23 goals and nine assists in 79 appearances – a goal or assist every 153.1 minutes – for Klopp, who himself admitted his mistake in relying upon the tall, dominant attacker as an emergency midfielder.
“I went to speak to Ruud just after [Gakpo] first got to Liverpool and he was struggling a little bit,” Gary Neville recalled on an episode of Stick to Football back in July.
“And I said to him ‘what about Gakpo?’, because obviously United were looking at him.
“He said ‘he’s a left winger, that’s it’. So when Klopp was playing him like false nine or centre-forward or a bit deeper in midfield at times, Ruud said he had him there at PSV and was absolutely a left winger.”
Who were we to judge the tactical acumen of Jürgen Klopp, one of the most successful and revered managers in modern footballing history – and certainly at Liverpool – but the use and performances of Gakpo since Slot took the reins underlines the flaw in Klopp’s approach.
Speaking in August, Gakpo confirmed: “I spoke to [Slot] and obviously he sees me as a left winger.” The 46-year-old, once again Van Nistelrooy’s adversary after his arrival at Leicester, firmly agrees with the former Man United striker.
It is not hard to see why, either, with Gakpo playing almost exclusively as a left winger in his 26 appearances for Slot so far, resulting in 10 goals and four assists – averaging a direct goal contribution every 97.6 minutes.
“I think the main difference maybe is that the setup from the front three was a bit different [under Klopp] than the setup now,” Slot explained after his No. 18 scored one and assisted another in Liverpool’s 3-1 win over Leicester on Boxing Day.
“We expect a bit more from our wingers, to keep it wide, to try to get them in one-vs-one situations. Cody has done this really well.”
Slot’s wingers – namely Gakpo, Luis Díaz and Mohamed Salah – have been directly responsible for 40 of Liverpool’s 63 goals so far this season (63.5%) compared to 54 of 142 goals in Klopp’s final campaign in charge (38%).
While there are a number of factors behind this, not least the irrepressible form of Salah as his contract nears its expiry, it is evident that a change of emphasis towards attacking from the flanks has benefited those regulars out wide.
Under Klopp in both 2022/23 and 2023/24 there was a focus on funnelling chances towards the centre-forward, with the £85 million signing of Darwin Núñez demanding the manager change his system to accommodate his new No. 9 – and to his credit, Núñez netted 18 times in Klopp’s final season, as Liverpool’s second-top scorer.
But a change in the dugout has brought a welcome refresh in the final third, with the Reds moving closer to the setup that made them one of the most devastating attacking side sides in Europe at their peak under Klopp.
With a deep-dropping, selfless No. 9 – formerly Roberto Firmino, now most effectively Díaz or Diogo Jota – there was and now is more opportunity for those out wide to flourish.
And knowing that Liverpool boast Arjen Robben on steroids on their books, with an ability to cut inside on his right foot and blast in from range with regularity despite it being the most predictable move in his locker, that has been one of Slot’s early masterstrokes.
It is certainly a credit to Gakpo himself, but also of a coach who shows a clearer understanding of the player Liverpool signed at the start of 2023.
As for all his obvious merits, Klopp’s persistence with Núñez as his focal point saw him overlook the talents hidden in plain sight.
(Images from IMAGO)
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