Pundit amazed by 24-year-old Liverpool player in first-half vs Bayern Munich today
Former Liverpool player Gary Gillespie couldn’t believe what he saw from Cody Gakpo in the opening minutes of today’s friendly against Bayern Munich.
Gakpo put Liverpool ahead inside a minute in Singapore. The Dutchman played a lovely one-two with Diogo Jota before burying a superb finish high past Yann Sommer.
And commentating for LFCTV, Gillespie raved about Gakpo’s unerring early finish.
“It’s a blistering start from Cody Gakpo,” said the pundit. “He did have the option to try and square it and I thought that was probably the better option but when you hit it like he did there with your left foot…
“He gets on that half turn, the simple half turn, Bayern won’t be happy with the defending but take nothing away from Cody Gakpo. This is a quality finish. Absolutely wonderful strike. Got himself across the defender so he couldn’t make the challenge and the finish is absolutely exquisite.”
As Klopp ponders his front-three for the opening day against Chelsea a week on Sunday, the 24-year-old has surely now muscled his way in.
The manager does have a plethora of options, all of whom have done well over the summer weeks. But Gakpo has arguably been the pick of the bunch.
His build up play and calmness on the ball is what has been taking the headlines. But as he showed here today, he can be devastating when through on goal, too.
Either foot, from distance, one on one, Gakpo can do it all.
As he raced through against Sommer, there didn’t look like a great deal on for him. You can perhaps point fingers at the Swiss goalie, but when the finish is that good, there isn’t much you can do.
With Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz watching on, Gakpo may have just grabbed himself a shirt. There’s still a long way to go today, but there’s nobody we’d rather have right now. Exquisite indeed.
