Jurgen Klopp Refuse to Compare Cody Gakpo with Luis Diaz

DBasia.news – Exactly a year ago in January, the Reds brought in Luis Diaz from Porto. Currently, Liverpool have recruited Cody Gakpo from PSV Eindhoven and become their first signing this January.

Both are attackers and just like last year, Liverpool are also back in the hunt for rival teams as Gakpo is also being targeted by Manchester United, Diaz was targeted by Tottenham Hotspur last season.

Liverpool recruited Gakpo (23) for 45 million pounds from PSV. His presence adds variety to Liverpool’s offensive game which already has Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, Roberto Firmino and Fabio Carvalho.

Jurgen Klopp has been working on him for the last two days and is pleased with what he has witnessed. Klopp sees Gakpo as a natural striker who can adapt quickly.

“Cody has been in training for two days and it’s fun to watch, to be honest,” Klopp explained about Gakpo as quoted by talkSPORT.

“In our situation with injuries to strikers it’s great to have a player on the pitch who is obviously natural in many ways, the offensive part of the game and he knows where the goals are, that helps a lot.”

“He’s obviously excited and enjoying every second of it, so that’s great.”

Last season when Diaz arrived, he made a significant impact through six goals and five assists in 25 matches in all competitions, helping Liverpool compete in four competitions. Gakpo is considered to be able to do the same thing.

However, Klopp refuse to burden the Dutch national team player. He is reluctant to compare Gakpo with Diaz, but Klopp hopes that Gakpo can also have a direct positive impact on Liverpool for the remainder of the 2022-2023 season.

“He’s looking really good, he’s looking really promising and he’s looking fit, that’s all good,” Klopp added.

“Is he 100% fit? I don’t know, he trained with a few days where he wasn’t with the team, but didn’t have the two days with the team. You can see that the sessions were quite intense for him because it’s different. Not more intense, but because they know you feel it more.”

“I’m positive about him but I’m not sure it helps if you compare. The influence of Lucho (Luis Diaz) was really special, to be honest, and we were able to trade a little bit because we had a hard time with injuries and that helped a lot. That’s what’s going to happen at this very moment.”

“Cody gets the same amount of time as every player. He has to adapt and going forward is not easy and he is from a different league so it is always challenging. That goes for Lucho as well, but we don’t have to compare. We expect a positive impact, for sure”, Klopp concluded.