Cody Gakpo will be a key man once again for Liverpool this season but his midfield role against Chelsea raises big question
As Cody Gakpo trudged off the Stamford Bridge turf with Sunday's game against Chelsea evenly poised, it marked the end of Jurgen Klopp's failed roll of the dice.
As a result, he failed to impose himself on the Premier League opener in West London as Enzo Fernandez, Conor Gallagher and Carney Chukwuemeka eventually overpowered Liverpool's trio despite a sluggish opening.READ MORE: Liverpool could qualify for CL despite finishing fifth and failing to win Europa League
And, rather uncharacteristically, Gakpo found himself on the periphery of the action for most of the afternoon and, in fact, tallied the lowest amount of successful passes amongst Liverpool's starting XI . In fact, the 24-year-old was caught ball-watching for the penultimate phase of Chelsea's equaliser as an unmarked Ben Chilwell capitalised on an abundance of space on the edge of the area to loop his header over the Reds' defence and into the path of Disasi.
Indeed, Gakpo has already highlighted how influential his off-the-ball movement is at unlocking stern defences as he played a pivotal role when Liverpool ended their last campaign with an 11-game unbeaten run. "He played that pretty much the whole pre-season," said Klopp post-match on Sunday, when asked about his deployment of Gakpo. “I think modern football is like that, that players can play different positions. The role suits him, definitely. He is super important for us. I think today you could see, first game of the season, a lot of spaces to cover, gaps to close.
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