Cody Gakpo is demonstrating that his Eredivisie form can be transferred to the Premier League.
The transition from the Eredivisie to the Premier League is not always smooth. Even Luis Suarez, unquestionably a successful Liverpool signing, only scored 15 league goals in his first 18 months in England. Acclimatizing to a higher standard of football can take time.
Thanks to many players moving across from the Netherlands and being far less effective than Suarez, fans and pundits normally approach transfers from the Eredivisie with caution. It was the same for Cody Gakpo, but those doubts are swiftly fading away.
The 23-year-old now has four goals for the Reds and they all came in important games, against Everton, Newcastle and Manchester United. Indeed, Opta’s Michael Reid noted Gakpo is only the 10th Red to score against their two fiercest rivals in their debut campaign with the club and that’s a guaranteed way to win over Kopites.
After bagging a brace (his first since October) when United were cast aside 7-0, Gakpo was asked which of his goals was better. “Most beautiful was the second one, the most important was the first one,” was his reply, and his response was accurate in more than aesthetic terms.
His strike at the Kop end – described as “an absolute wow moment” by Jamie Carragher on Monday Night Football – stirred memories of a famous goal Philippe Coutinho once scored in a Europa League clash at Old Trafford. In both instances, albeit from opposite sides, the Liverpool man lifted the ball past David de Gea from the tightest of angles in stunning fashion.
With the advent of in-depth data analysis of football, we can now put the quality of Gakpo’s finish into context. In the opinion of Opta’s post-shot expected goal model – which accounts for the placement of the goal attempt as well as from where it was struck – the Dutchman’s effort was near enough un-saveable.
They rated it at 0.96, making it the strongest shot any Liverpool player has delivered in the league or Europe this season. The only better effort in any of their games was Ruben Neves’ strike for Wolves’ third goal at Molineux, which clocked in at 0.97. However, that was already a 0.65 chance in standard expected goal terms whereas Gakpo’s United effort was 0.21, giving him much more to do to reach the upper nineties.
While not as extreme an improvement, the former PSV man took a chance worth 0.07 xG and made it 0.55 through finishing to score in the first half against United too. The opportunities from which Gakpo scored against the Blues and Magpies were already high value, but once again he made them better and doing this has been a theme of his recent career.
In total, the Reds’ number 18 has logged 2.8 expected goals in the Premier League but 3.4 after finishing is taken into account. This improvement should not be taken for granted, as Liverpool’s five main forwards were all below their xG total in the post-shot model last season.
Gakpo also displayed his finishing prowess at the World Cup. While his record of converting three of his first four shots in Qatar was never going to be sustained, he added 0.69, 0.14 and 0.34 to the attempts which found the net.
With PSV, the Netherlands international transformed 6.4 expected goals into 8.9 post-shot in the Eredivisie this season. It was fair to ask if that margin would decline in the harsher climes of the Premier League, and indeed it has. Gakpo is still in credit, though, and he’s barely got started with Liverpool yet.
“That finish, that’s world class,” was Carragher’s verdict on the forward’s second goal against United. The former Red-turned-pundit was right, and it’s not even the end of the beginning of what the £40m man will offer to Jurgen Klopp’s side.
source: www.liverpoolecho.co.uk
