Cody Gakpo has explained why he is unfazed by criticism leveled at him early in his Liverpool career.
The Reds agreed a January deal worth potentially more than £40 million with add-ons with PSV Eindhoven for the World Cup breakout star. Liverpool bҽat Manchester United to sign the Dutch international, who scored three goals in Qatar, but he has struggled in his short time on Merseyside.
Gakpo failed to score a goal or provide an assist in his first six appearances at Anfield. That changed on Monday night in the Merseyside derby.
Gakpo scored his first goal for the club in a 2-0 home win over Everton. His goal came after Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah had combined to open the scoring.
Gakpo spoke after the win over the Blues about the difficulties he faced in his early days as a Liverpool player. The 23-year-old also admitted that he could have discussed any issues with Reds manager Jurgen Klopp, but explained why he did not.
.png){kind=spacer}
“Of course, as a striker, you want to score and assist,” Gakpo explained to Viaplay Netherlands. “In the end, it’s about winning, and if that doesn’t work out, it’s tough.
“I’ll be honest; I don’t really read it” (criticism). Of course, I understand.
“That’s not very nice for any normal person, but you have to deal with it. I don’t think that confuses me.
“I think I could have gone to Jurgen Klopp for that, but I didn’t. That was not required of me.”
The derby victory ended Liverpool’s wait for their first Premier League victory in 2023. Another win, against Newcastle United on Saturday night, would significantly increase their chances of finishing in the top four.
Klopp urges Uefa to act on Paris findings
Liverpool have implored Uefa to fully implement all the recommendations made in the highly-critical independent report into last year’s Champions League final chaos.
The governing body of European football appointed a group to investigate dangerous congestion, supporters being attacked by locals and tear-gassed by police, and the overall operation at the Stade de France in May. The group’s findings place the blame on Uefa and the authorities in France. According to the findings of the research, UEFA bears “major responsibility for shortcomings” that nearly caused the showpiece final versus Real Madrid to become a “mass fαtality catastrophe.”
According to a statement released by Liverpool, the following was said: “We urge on Uefa and others at the top of the football regulation pyramid to come together and take positive and transparent action to ensure that there are no more “near misses.” We were resolute in our commitment to ensuring that a thorough investigation was carried out so that appropriate precautions could be taken to guarantee that the safety of football fans in Europe would never be put in jeopardy again.
“As a football club with a proud history in Europe, we call on Uefa to do the right thing and implement the 21 recommendations to ensure the safety of all football supporters attending any future Uefa match,” the statement read, “We call on Uefa to do the right thing and implement the 21 recommendations to ensure the safety of all football supporters attending any future Uefa match
Professor Clifford Scott, who was involved in the writing of the report and is a co-author of it, stated that pressure should be put on UEFA to make the necessary reforms. He said, “There have been adequate reports before making a complete series of suggestions, which have not been followed.” “There have been ample reports before making a full series of recommendations”
“The conversation that we need to have, which is how can we pull stakeholders together, including fans, to move this scenario towards one where Uefa is forced to execute the core recommendations of this report?”
Jürgen Klopp just gave Mohamed Salah exactly what he needed as Liverpool talisman reclaims crown
Mohamed Salah has had a fair amount of success throughout his time on Merseyside. When he was identified as a target for Liverpool in the summer of 2017, the club had already been working under Jürgen Klopp’s direction for the previous 18 months.
During that time span, the Reds had made significant progress, and the inclusion of Salah was a component of their strategy to continue developing. Ever since he left AS Roma to come back to the United Kingdom, the Egyptian international has been a part of a successful club that operates within a well-designed system and is loaded with players who have flourished as his colleagues.
:focal(1204x340:1206x338)/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2023/02/13/3555027-72409708-2560-1440.jpg)
Before the start of this season, Salah had already amassed an astounding total of 118 goals in the Premier League, scoring roughly once every 127 minutes on average. He has appeared in 180 games in the league. In addition to being able to put the ball in the back of the net, he has recorded an additional 46 assists, shattering a whole host of records in the process. It is certainly possible to make the case that his unparalleled production in the final third has been the result of the fαctors that have been in play around him, despite the fαct that his level has remained astonishingly high throughout the entirety of his time at the club, and that his dedication to the cause has been indisputable.
As a result of Roberto Firmino’s position as a facilitator, Mohamed Salah now has a platform from which to lead attacks, while Trent Alexander-Arnold, a technician, has been supplying him with the ball from deeper areas. Sadio Mane was a talented teammate who played on the opposite flank and frequently distracted opponents. Alisson Becker even played to Sadio Mane’s abilities by enabling him to take the lead in counterattacks.
However, things are different now than they were last semester. The current position of Liverpool in the Premier League table is ninth, and the team has been playing very differently than they have in the past. Jurgen Klopp has reshuffled his lineup on multiple times in an effort to stem the tide of poor play.
Alexander-Arnold has been out of form, Firmino has been injured, Mané has left for Bayern Munich, and perhaps most importantly of all, the team’s engine room has struggled to control matches as much as it did in the past, resulting in opponents inflicting damage on the break against the Reds. Salah has been used through the middle, Firmino has been injured, Mané has left for Bayern Munich, and Alexander-Arnold has been out of form. Some Liverpool fans have determined that Salah is to blame for the team’s poor performance this season, despite the fαct that the team has practically gone off a cliff. It is expected of him to perform at a level commensurate with his status as a seasoned professional who, as a result of signing a new deal the previous year, is earning more money than any of his teammates, and this is true regardless of what is going on around him.
The 30-year-old forward has only reached the back of the goal eight times in 21 Premier League games, which puts him behind players like James Maddison, Rodrigo, and Miguel Almirón. The same thing has happened to his number of touches per 90 minutes as well as his number of shots per 90 minutes: both have decreased.
There have been a lot of worried fans who have questioned whether or not Mohamed Salah is still interested in the team because of his new bumper contract, but the evidence that was displayed against Everton on Monday night reveals that he is not.
In their matchup against their crosstown rivals, Liverpool turned in what was arguably their greatest performance of the entire season. They won the game by a score of two goals to none, took more than twice as many shots as their competitors, and controlled the ball from the moment the referee blew the initial whistle. The Reds dominated play on the field for the first time in what felt like months, particularly in the middle third of the field. The fαct that Salah appeared to be performing at his peak again is just a coincidence, right?
The crafty attacker not only opened the scoring for the match, but he also finished with a total of six shots on goal and made seven attempts to dribble the ball during the contest. To put that into perspective, he has only had more than six shots on goal once this season, and his total of seven dribbles is tied for the most he’s had in a single game so far this year.
After the fιght, Arsène Wenger was interviewed for the beIN SPORTS coverage and said the following: “Tonight, we saw the Mo Salah that dominates challenges, affects the speed of the game, and is present in the build-up of the game once again. It wasn’t until tonight that I saw him play like the world-class player and lethal finisher that we are accustomed to seeing from him. Now we will watch to see what he does next.”
It is not yet known whether Liverpool will now experience a run of positive form, but supporters should not be surprιsed if Salah also benefits from an upturn in form if Liverpool does experience a great run of form. The Reds’ number 11 is very much a product of Jurgen Klopp’s system, as has been the case ever since the German manager took over six years ago.