You are missing the context. Lots of people are positioning his loss as necessitating a change in how we play and what we’re able to do due to it representing a change in profile in what we have available on the left LW, but that ignores how much of our football last year we played with Cody on the LW, often when Diaz was available.
Of his 50 appearances last season in total 12 were on the LW when Gakpo was not available and a further 9 were coming on as a sub for Cody. That accounts for the overwhelming majority of his LW appearances last season. If you add in the games where he played centrally, that leaves only a small number where he played LW because he and his profile were preferred to Gapko.
So what does that mean in terms of the contrast with this season? What that does is largely eliminate from consideration that it is the profile of player available to Slot on the LW (Slot just needs fast wingers) that has so changed and hurt us. Much like the idea losing Trent necessarily impacted Mo as an explanation for this season’s failures, that ignores how much football Bradley played last year with no notable difference in our overall effectiveness. It is comforting explanation for what has gone wrong because we can identify it and theoretically address it, but it requires us to ignore how much football we played last season and how successful that was without the now missing player in the role we’re identifying as our problem.
Yeah, I think Arne likes systems that become that 4222 shape. One winger moving inwards to form the box, with the other perhaps aiming for a run in the box. That two up front is probably going to more often than not be a centre forward and winger joining the attack rather than two out and out forwards?
Diaz actually played 500 more minutes in the league than Gakpo, missing 2 games to Gakpo´s 3. He played more than half his minutes at left wing.
So most definitely he was a significant loss, indeed at left wing.
In terms of the reasons for the drop off, we don´t have such an attacking threat from right back and Salah can´t carry us anymore so you need more from the rest of your front 3 and midfield, which we don´t have. At the same time the defence is a less solid. Not couting Slot factor.
Liverpool’s 33-year-old Brazil goalkeeper Alisson wants to join Juventus this summer even if the Serie A side fail to qualify for the Champions League. (Gazzetta - in Italian)
Liverpool could make a move for 21-year-old Norway winger Antonio Nusa should a deal for his RB Leipzig team-mate Yan Diomande become too difficult. (Football Insider), external
Fenerbahce have emerged as a surprise contender to sign 33-year-old Egypt forward Mohamed Salah from Liverpool this summer. (Caught Offside)
I would doubt that he’s even being targeted as an immediate first team option. This looks to be part of a concerted effort to bolster the youth ranks hurt by the exodus of Klopp’s kids last summer (see the 3 CBs we bought)
Having watched the six minute “Welcome to Liverpool” video on YouTube I can confidently say he’s a footballer who mainly plays the ball with a foot and he broadly kicks it in the direction of people in the same shirt as him, typically closer to the oppositions goal than he is. He has two legs, a head and some hair.
Based on that I’m pretty confident he’s the second coming of Kaka albeit a Colombian one.
