Liverpool needs to find the next Roberto Firmino sooner rather than later as the Brazilian’s contract ticks down. Jürgen Klopp is already hinting at the answer.
Twice now, Jürgen Klopp has been clear with his intentions, and there were glimmers from Cody Gakpo against Brighton that help explain the move.
For two games in a row, Darwin Núñez has had to settle for coming off the bench, and against both Chelsea and the Seagulls, he entered the pitch to play from the left rather than down the middle.
That seems a strange decision from Klopp with Núñez a potentially-record signing, signed to play down the center and change the way that Liverpool attacks.
Gakpo, though, has since been brought in as well, and there has been a real reluctance to play him off the left, which is the role he played most frequently for PSV.
For Liverpool, even though it may be a tiny sample size, he has exclusively played in the middle as a number nine, despite other wide options like Luis Díaz and Diogo Jota currently being missing.
It is a role that he can play, and he explained as much when he arrived from PSV. But it is a little odd perhaps that Liverpool has chosen not to field him wide when that seems such an obvious solution in the attacking line-up.
“When I played at the World Cup, I played more in the center, so I played like a ‘false nine’, something like this — try to find my spaces to get the ball and to dribble or to move the ball forward,” he told Liverpool’s official website when he arrived.
“I try to be a player who goes forward and tries to make dangerous situations for the opponent and create chances, make dribbles and give assists and goals.”
There were moments during the game with Brighton — like the run that drew a cynical yellow card for Lewis Dunk — that showed some of those skills.
Yet even that dribbling would surely be easier and therefore more frequent from the left rather than through the middle, where things are usually more congested.
But there must be a reason for the decision to persist with Gakpo only playing centrally. Perhaps it is because the club feels that the 23-year-old needs more time to adapt defensively before moving out wide, but Núñez is hardly a natural defender.
More likely, it seems there is a changing of the guard involving the currently-injured Roberto Firmino. Almost impossible to replace like-for-like, perhaps Gakpo is being fielded centrally with a view to replacing the Brazilian’s role in the squad.
Firmino is, of course, out of contract at the end of the season, and could well depart for pastures new. Sooner or later, Liverpool is going to have to think about his successor, even if he were to sign a short-term contract extension.
In Gakpo, the early signs are that he could be auditioning for the position. Where that leaves Núñez remains to be seen, but having a little bit of so many different types of forward players can never be a bad problem to have for Liverpool and Klopp.
