Cody GAKPO: 2023/24

There is always one player that has to be the whipping boy.

Gakpo has played really well before. Form is a thing. Gakpo is not in it, but it will come back.

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For me, heā€™s more frustrating than anything else.

Clearly has talent but it just seems in games something is holding him back.

Heā€™s then indecisive and ends up many times maybe picking a wrong option.

The players available have just won 4 games in 11 days, including a final, with virtually no rotation. There are heroes as far as I am concerned.

Yes Gapko hasnā€™t been good lately but cut him some slack. Heā€™s earned it.

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Ultimately weā€™re being forced to push the boundaries and play squad players like him and Harvey every game until the big boys are back and 100% fit and weā€™re seeing their limits when being asked to play regularly.

Harsh to say but itā€™s another example for me where neither will reach the levels required to be a first team regular/big game player.

Let us take a moment to consider how we wrote off Gomez, how annoyed we get if Nunez doesnā€™t score a hattrick, and how ponderous we think Curtis is. Cody isnā€™t having a great time on the pitch, that only means that we fans should be supportive. Letā€™s face it, even at his worst, Cody is doing much, much more that all of us combined.

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Love this, well said

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Forget that, heā€™s still doing well by an average Premier League footballerā€™s standards. Just because heā€™s not Mo Salah doesnā€™t mean that he hasnā€™t been good during this time. Heā€™s played most of the minutes in the last 4 games.

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My mate Ifti.

Legend.

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Wrong: we are only winning league games because @GermanRed is starting the match threads.

And the Carabao Cup win is entirely down to you.

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Iā€™ve also started the PL 2023/24 thread. Took it to a whole nother level. :upside_down_face:

Weā€™re winning every game, I donā€™t know why we have to try and be critical of everything. Cody is our 5th choice attacker and has 11 goals and 5 assists.

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And with that comes the issue if playing a different role in every game. That hurts his rhythm and consistency, but thatā€™s a bit of a double edged sword for him. He plays that role because, so far at least, he has not consistently done well enough in any single role to nail down a spot and force everyone else to compete with him.

It also seems pretty clear to me he is held to a standard some of our other more favoured players are not. His mistakes, sometimes perceived mistakes, define the perception of his performance in ways those things donā€™t for other players. Sometimes that feels unfair, but I sort of get it. All players have a threshold level of proof of their quality and fit they need to give fans for them to have faith. For me, I have seen enough from him to think weā€™ve got a good one, especially when you consider the context of the difficulty of competing with 4 other such good forwards. But I get why others are less sold and itā€™s easy to see why that results in a more critical appraisal of his performances.

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Eleven goals and five assists in 38 games isnā€™t fantastic, but it isnā€™t horrible either. Each of those goals and assists has contributed to where we are now.

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Weak again, coming off the bench centrally (hoped he would go on the left though) and when we really needed fresh legs, minds. Heā€™s a big lad, but doesnā€™t use his body well enough. Seen it before with similar body types.

Luis DĆ­az
2717 minutes
11 goals
5 assists

Cody Gakpo
2350 minutes
13 goals
5 assists

For any fifth choice attacker in the world those would be some great numbers.

Cody has been used in 4 different positions which also doesnā€™t help to build some form.

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https://twitter.com/JamesPearceLFC/status/1770436112294555884

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Also a point JĆ¼rgen made a few weeks ago, by the way.

This is why we can never have a satisfied fanbase. Even when we have a squad that has somehow made it through quite a horrendous injury crisis to in a good position in the league, and make it through to at least the quarter-finals of all cup competitions, having won one already, somehow there still needs to be a scapegoat somewhere.

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Thereā€™s a difference between pointing out that somebody isnā€™t playing well and making them a scapegoat.

There is. And judging by the posts about him, Iā€™m not the one who doesnā€™t understand that.

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