The Fire and Frustration of Cody Gakpo

Liverpool's Dutch winger takes a lot of criticism. He can irritate but his positive record deserves credit too.

Cody Gakpo frustrates huge sections of the Liverpool fanbase. He doesn’t have the physical presence his size suggests he should. He hasn’t been linking up well with his new left flank colleague Milos Kerkez either (albeit there have been flickers of improvement recently).

At face value, Gakpo leading the 2025/26 Premier League for ball carries of at least five metres that end with a shot or chance created should be a positive for him to wear proudly. In reality, many of those efforts end with the ball nowhere near the opposition goal.

Here’s the Dutchman’s Premier League shot map for this season, via Understat. Kopites won’t need to read this sentence to know that the efforts within the white oval were most likely preceded by Gakpo dribbling in from the flank before unleashing a wasteful shot. There must’ve been better options, Cody?

His performance in Liverpool’s 2-0 win at West Ham summed him up superbly. Gakpo turned possession over five times through mis-controlling the ball, hitting that mark for the third time in the league this season. Mohamed Salah has done this twice, nobody else in the squad has blemished their record to this extent at all.

Four of them were in the final third, with one of those in the box, ensuring the Reds lost momentum when in very dangerous areas. And, inevitably, he had a wasteful long range shot. Indeed, it was the furthest distance from which Gakpo has fired a goal attempt this season. Hopefully someone who was in the second tier of the stand can confirm if they caught it.

We all felt like that, Cody. Gomez has his arm in the air, he’ll score if you pass. Definitely.

The win also showed his positive side, though, as the 26-year-old assisted and scored Liverpool’s two goals. Gakpo has made 33 non-penalty goal contributions in the Arne Slot era, second to #OnlySalah. Starting the count at March 1 for the sake of argument puts the Netherlands international top. That’s clearly an arbitrary time period chosen to make a point but it covers 34 matches, it’s not nothing.

Perhaps this is part of the problem. If Gakpo is the leading contributor over such an extended period, it’s only because Salah’s form has plummeted. Hugo Ekitike, Alexander Isak, Diogo Jota and Darwin Núñez have the same tally between them at centre forward; maybe one of them would be top with as much playing time as Gakpo.

Maybe, maybe not. If they could finish better, the former PSV Eindhoven man would have amassed more assists too. At a time of huge upheaval in the Liverpool front line, Cody Gakpo is arguably the one man consistently keeping it afloat.