Liverpool’s Dutch forward Cody Gakpo has been one of the stars of the 2026 World Cup group stage, with two goals and an assist in the Netherlands’ first two games and Man of the Match honours for their 5-1 demolition of Sweden. He has been the focal point in attack for one of the pre-tournament favourites, and if the Dutch go deep he will be expected to be in the mix for the Golden Ball and Golden Boot.
Gakpo, though, had a disastrous 2025-26 season at the club level, and the 27-year-old left winger
ended the campaign having had more shots blocked than any other Premier League player with 33 despite that he wasn’t amongst the league’s top ten for actually getting his shots on target.
While he wasn’t Liverpool’s only problem in a season that saw their title defence ended a month into it and led to head coach Arne Slot’s sacking by the end, Gakpo’s insistence on ignoring the overlapping fullback, cutting inside from the left, and blasting a shot directly at the first defender led to plenty of criticism and derision from the fans. For many, if you asked for a defining memory or mental image of 2025-26, it would be Gakpo’s attacking futility.
All of which is to say that Cody Gakpo, who Liverpool signed from PSV in January 2023 for £43M, headed to the World Cup this summer with his stock at an all-time low. And now he’s emerged, or perhaps re-emerged, as the attacking star in a Dutch side with aspirations for at the very least a deep run—and maybe even a historic first World Cup if the cards fall right.
For Liverpool, this poses an interesting conundrum. Namely, should they cash in on Gakpo’s strong World Cup? It’s a question complicated by the fact the club have already said goodbye to superstar and Premier League legend Mohamed Salah. The 34-year-old Egyptian winger showed signs of slowing down over the past 12 months and the club agreed to terminate the final year of his deal, allowing him to move on with his pick of clubs.
They sold Luis Diaz, Colombia and now also Bayern Munich’s firebrand winger, last summer without ever properly replacing him. Last summer they also sold forward Darwin Nuñez and lost Diogo Jota in a tragic auto accident. Alexander Isak, who they paid more than £100M for and was meant to be their next superstar, spent much of the season injured and struggled to convince when he wasn’t. Hugo Ekitike, the striker they signed who did deliver, is out until 2027 with a ruptured Achilles.
Add it up and as things stand, to start 2026-27 Liverpool will have a hopefully fit Isak along with talented 17-year-old wing prospect Rio Ngumoha, new signing Victor Muñoz, and Gakpo. And now Gakpo, who failed to deliver at the club level last season, is off having an outstanding World Cup and raising his value to the point Liverpool may have to start asking if they should sell.
With Gakpo’s stock low before the World Cup kicked off, few would have proposed a sale. However, Anthony Gordon’s recent £70M move from Newcastle to Barcelona hints at what Gakpo might fetch if his stock is high. If Liverpool aren’t convinced he can bring his World Cup form back to Anfield—and there’s reason to think that he can’t—that kind of fee would be hard to turn down.
Gakpo has always performed well for the national team. From his senior debut in 2021, he has earned 52 caps, scoring 23 goals and providing 11 assists along the way. Those numbers give Gakpo a goal involvement every 114 minutes with his national team. Those are elite numbers. Salah, by comparison, has a goal involvement every 116 minutes with Egypt.
At the club level, for comparison, Gakpo has a goal involvement every 153 minutes in his Liverpool career, though that number plummeted to a goal involvement every 240 minutes last year. Still, his career numbers are nothing to sniff at—Gordon, the now £70M Barcelona man, managed a goal involvement every 152 minutes in his career at Newcastle.
Salah, on the other hand, had a goal involvement every 94 minutes across his Liverpool career at the club level. Which isn’t to suggest that should be the standard Gakpo is required to live up to. Rather it’s to highlight what elite looks like, and that while Gakpo is an elite performer for the Netherlands, outside of last season when he and Liverpool both struggled mightily he is merely a very good player at the club level.
As to why that’s the case, well, the answer really isn’t very complicated. Against Sweden when he scored his two goals and an assist and earned Man of the Match, Gakpo was playing on the left wing against a right back who plays his club football in the Swedish second division. Put simply, the standard of player at the international level as well as the time spent training with teammates is, in general, lower than at the highest levels of club football. Gakpo, playing for a strong Dutch side, benefits from this. Salah, playing for a weaker Egypt, suffers.
For Liverpool, it’s maybe not as straightforward as seeing Gakpo rehabilitating his reputation at the World Cup and deciding that now is the time to cash in, not given just how thin the Reds are in attack—and not while they already face a need to majorly overhaul and reinforce in midfield and defence as well.
Liverpool have a new head coach in Andoni Iraola, they have to replace Salah, they have to replace long-time left back Andy Robertson, they have holes at right back and centre back and question marks in midfield and a pre-existing lack of attacking depth that bit them hard last season. They have a quite worrying amount of transfer business to get done already.
Adding replacing Gakpo to the mix could well be a case of making more work for themselves when they’ve already got too far much to do, even if a strong World Cup might well could get Gakpo back to the point where another club will be willing to pay £70M for him as Barcelona paid for Anthony Gordon. Because if that’s Gakpo’s ceiling at the club level—and his goal involvement numbers suggest that’s the case—if you sell him you need to replace that, and a £70M Cody Gakpo windfall could buy a lot of things. It could even buy Liverpool another Cody Gakpo.
The great unknown, perhaps, is how Gakpo himself feels. It can’t have been fun to become the scapegoat for all of Liverpool’s ills last season, and it would be easy to understand if the player wanted a change of scenery. If he did want out, certainly the hope would be that World Cup rehabilitation would fetch the Reds the best possible fee. If he doesn’t want out, though, it may be smarter to simply move forward with Gakpo in the mix hoping he can get back to being Club Level Cody Gakpo and provide a goal involvement every 153-odd minutes for Liverpool.
