Cody Gakpo got his first Liverpool goal against Everton but there were other aspects of his performance which may have pleased Jürgen Klopp even more.
It always seems surprising how quickly things can turn in football, but sometimes all you need to do is play a team as bad as Everton. Perhaps that’s a little unfair on the Blues; Liverpool has rarely won at Goodison Park under Jürgen Klopp, after all.
But when a team arrives at Anfield with three away wins since the start of last season, never mind this, you can be confident of getting a result, derby or no derby. And so it proved last Monday with the Reds beating Everton 2-0.
It wasn’t only Liverpool’s form in terms of results which turned for the better either. A weakness Klopp publicly identified last month appears to have been rectified, with a new player making a key contribution in two important ways.
The way his side had been playing in 2023, there was probably a post-match quote from Klopp for each match which highlighted one serious issue or other. However, when he spoke after the 2-2 FA Cup draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers, his comments were backed up by the data.
“In the whole game we didn’t win enough challenges, to be honest,” Klopp said (via the ECHO). “They win a challenge and all of a sudden we are completely open, how is that possible?”
How indeed, Jürgen? Whatever the reason, Liverpool only won 43.2 per cent of the duels that night, which was its sixth-worst performance of the campaign in this respect. Arguably of greater concern was that the Reds had edged the challenges by one in the first half but utterly disintegrated after the break.
They also dipped in the second half against Everton last time out, except that they did so from a position of such strength that they remained dominant, nonetheless. Liverpool won 57.1 per cent of the duels in the derby, its top league showing of 2022/23, its best figures in any competition against a club not from Glasgow and higher than its average in any previous Klopp season.
One of the key players was Cody Gakpo. Per Fotmob, the Dutchman was successful with seven of his 11 ground duels, with his 63 per cent win rate the best of any player who attempted more than three. Excelling in challenges on the deck appears to be a strength of the 23-year-old, even if we must acknowledge that his Reds career only represents a small sample to date.
Jürgen Klopp speaks to Cody Gakpo during the FA Cup match against Wolves at Anfield (Image: Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)
Among the 19 Liverpool players who’ve attempted at least 28 ground duels in the 2022/23 Premier League, Gakpo has the joint-best win percentage, at 57.1 (per Fantasy Football Scout). There have been 151 instances in the Klopp era of someone dueling over 27 times, and the success rate of the former PSV man sees him ranked joint-22nd (and fourth among forwards). We shall have to see if he can maintain this in the long term but it’s an encouraging start.
The same can be said for his pressing, at least against Everton. The Statsbomb derby data was shared by Sean Rogers of The Anfield Wrap, and it showed Gakpo was second for pressures, with 15, four adrift of man-of-the-match Stefan Bajčetić. Sadly, such numbers are no longer available on FBref, but last season there were only 22 instances across 51 games in league and Europe of a Liverpool forward making at least as many possession-adjusted pressures per 90 minutes.
As with challenges, Gakpo isn’t quite top of the pile. But his efforts must be put into the context of joining a relatively struggling side in mid-season. A team which had a set-in-stone tactical system and an established front three has been in a state of near-constant flux throughout this campaign.
If Gakpo can post these sorts of figures now, imagine what he can do once Klopp has spent an entire pre-season with him. Many of the manager’s recent concerns regarding his team may swiftly disappear, perhaps justifying the huge January call to opt for a pressing forward as a way of solving the problems rather than finding a suitable midfielder.
