Cody Gakpo could make his Liverpool debut against Wolves this weekend, and he’ll be under added pressure to hit the ground running amid one Mohamed Salah problem.
Mohamed Salah is one of the few Liverpool players that can legitimately claim to be having a good season amid the team’s wider struggles.
Salah has racked up 22 goal involvements in 25 appearances in all competitions, scoring 16 times and providing a further six assists. That puts him nearly 10 clear at the top of the club’s goal contribution chart, with Roberto Firmino next up on 13 (nine goals, four assists).
In all, the Egyptian has either scored or set up just under a third of Liverpool’s Premier League goals (32.3 per cent), and a whopping 41.5 per cent of their goals across the board.
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On one level, this may only increase Salah’s legend. If he can drag an ailing team to a top-four finish, just as he did in 2020/21, he will appear even more heroic.
But the current over-reliance on Salah remains deeply problematic. Last season, when Liverpool pushed for a quadruple, the right winger was only involved in 27.8 per cent of their goals.
In 2019/20, when they won the league, it was 30.7 per cent, and in 2018/19, when they were champions of Europe, it was 33.9 per cent. When they can keep it to around a third, it seems they’re in the sweet spot.
But even in that infamous 2020/21 campaign, when a brutal succession of injuries ripped the spine out of the team and shattered the Reds’ title hopes, Salah was not carrying the team to the current extent. Back then, his involvement rate stood at 37.3 per cent.
In fact, in only one of his five previous seasons at Liverpool has he exceeded this season’s figure, and that was his historic 60 G/A debut campaign (44.4 per cent). That was more a sign of his own record-breaking brilliance than it was attacking dysfunction.
Of the 10 games in which Salah has failed to either score or assist, Liverpool have only won four (9-0 vs Bournemouth, 1-0 vs West Ham, 3-1 vs Southampton and 2-1 vs Leicester). They were held to draws by Everton and Crystal Palace, and lost to Napoli, Arsenal, Nottingham Forest and, most recently, Brentford.
Right now, Liverpool simply lack enough dependable sources of goals and assists. The hope will be Darwin Núñez reaches that point very soon, but up to this point, he’s missed more big chances than anybody else in the Premier League.
The predominant absence of Diogo Jota, who notched 48 G/A in his first 93 appearances for the club but has been limited to eight appearances this season by injury, has been sorely felt.
And Luis Díaz hasn’t been able to make the anticipated step forward in terms of his end product for the same reason. Even Firmino, second behind Salah in the aforementioned table, has only managed goal involvement since mid-October.
The good news for Liverpool, though, is that they’re about to unleash a new £44m ($53m/€50m) attacker in Cody Gakpo.
Gakpo’s numbers this season have been outstanding — 13 goals and 17 assists in 24 games — and he will, at last, fill the void left by Díaz and Jota on the left wing. His debut should come against Wolves this weekend.
Patience is always important with a new signing but Gakpo does face added pressure to deliver straight off the bat, at least in terms of numbers, and take some of the burden off Salah.
After all, the Reds should not need to hope for consistent magic from the 30-year-old just to keep their season afloat.
Source: www.liverpool.com
