Liverpool can consider £35m star a fantastic brand-new signing

Liverpool can consider their £35m to be a brand-new signing. This will be a very different season.

Cody Gakpo had an incredibly difficult season last year. He struggled on the pitch, and Arne Slot’s insistence to play him turned Gakpo into something of a scapegoat.

In the eye’s of many - even most - he became the face of Liverpool’s decline under Slot. That was woefully unfair, of course.

Everyone else got the benefit of the doubt. They were players struggling in a team that didn’t work and needed a change of coach. Gakpo, on the other hand, was apparently just a poor player.

That’s never been the case. Gakpo bagged 18 goals in all competitions just the year before, while we know full well that he can deliver at the top level as we’ve seen it before.

But there’s an even clearer indication. The Dutchman has shone at the World Cup, scoring consistently and just being a general threat for his country.

On the biggest stage, Gakpo has proven that the player Liverpool signed and saw the best of is very much still there. He’s capable of being the main goal threat, he’s capable of taking on defenders, and he can win matches.

And Liverpool desperately need that player back. Just having Gakpo anywhere near his best would be like a new signing on the left hand side - and do the Reds ever need production from wide areas.

They’re already struggling to find someone to replace Mohamed Salah on the right, after all. Needing to ‘fix’ the left would create something of a nightmare scenario so faith that Gakpo can recover his form under Andoni Iraola feels necessary.

We believe he can do just that. A player reborn in a better system with better ideas - and hopefully a few reinvigorated teammates to boost things further.