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Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images
Former Red and current Sky pundit Jamie Carragher thinks the slower pace at the Euros is benefitting the Liverpool forward.
So far at this summer’s Euro 2024, the leading goal scorer and arguably player of the tournament has been Liverpool forward Cody Gakpo. It’s probably not something that many would have predicted going into it.
Since signing for Liverpool, Gakpo has always looked a talented player, but he’s rarely looked a better option than Luis Diaz or Diogo Jota to start in his favoured position on the left, and thats meant playing through the middle as a false nine or in an advanced midfield role.
Over the past few weeks, though, everyone has seen what an in-form Gakpo can do in the role he believes suits him best. That includes former Liverpool defender and Sky pundit Jamie Carragher, who tried to get to the bottom of the situation ahead of Netherlands’ semi-final clash with England.
“There’s no doubt he’s always been Holland’s number one attacking player,” Carragher noted. “So you’re always in a way waiting to see what we’ve seen from him in a Holland shirt or with PSV for Liverpool.
“The standard for Liverpool now you’ve got to be the best in the league, the best in Europe, and it’s not been easy for him.Maybe it’s the slower pace in the tournament, because he looks like one of the quickest players and you wouldn’t say that about Cody Gakpo in the Premier League.
“But in this tournament he looks powerful, he looks big, he’s running past players and getting his shots away. He’s been a revelation, one of the best players in the tournament, and someone England will have to keep an eye on.”
The reaction of Liverpool fans online to Gakpo’s standout tournament has been obvious and inevitable, with calls for him to start and the rather dubious suggestion that perhaps former manager Jürgen Klopp—one of the club’s all-time greats—misused him.
It’s a reaction that ignores that few of those calling for Gakpo to go into the season as first choice on the left would have reacted well if Klopp had insisted on starting him there ahead of the more effective Diaz or Jota last season.
It also ignores the quirks of international football. That some players seem always to elevate their games for the national team. That sometimes, as at this Euros in games involving top nations other than Spain and Germany, the pace is slower than one would expect to see regularly in elite club football.
Every Liverpool fan will want to see Gakpo bring his Euros form back to Anfield. Ignoring 18 months of evidence and proposing Klopp got it wrong in order to believe it’s certain that he will seems, at best, at the extreme edge of hopeful.
