Hang on, despite the fact you missed the joke, letās break this down.
Salah got some stick last season for his form, but it was largely respectful of everything heās done previously and largely put down to Father Time catching up with a great player.
With Gakpo, yes he was disappointing, but there has been a nasty edge to the criticism, with posters insinuating he got special treatment because the manager shared his nationality.
Anfield Sector is an awful awful awful account. Anything it reports with legs is pure second hand recycling of stuff from other accounts, but a good amount of its stuff is rage bait.
Also I would just like to say that @Mascot and @rab I respect you both greatly and always look forward to your posts (whether I agree or not with the posts is another matter )
Even so, I think Gakpo has become a bit of a whipping boy. Reminds me a lot of Lucas back in the day. Christ, there were few issues in the team that some posters couldnāt find a way to put at his feet.
Yes, Iāve also resorted to defending Cody even though he greatly annoyed me whenever Iāve seen him at Anfield (except the first match, he was pretty good in that one).
But so was Macca, Konate, Kerkez, Gravā¦you get the point.
Hopefully we can draw a line under the dog turd of a season we just had and move on. A few players were name-checked and arguably were unfairly singled out, when the context was that we were all just fed up with how poorly the team overall was doing.
Weāve since had a change in manager and now the focus will hopefully shift to looking forward, not re-litigating what went before.
There were a lot of players that were nowhere near their best in a lot of the games last season⦠but while form can come and go for many reasons, what was evident, and also unforgivable, some of the players had a tendency to drop their heads and basically shuffle about the pitch for 90mins⦠this obviously destroyed morale amongst others that were at least trying.
Yes form is unpredictable at times, but what should not be unpredictable, is that players should at least put the effort in no matter what⦠this didnāt happen and shows we have a mixed bag of attitudes amongst the squad, and it really does need eliminating.
If this means eventually getting rid of the ones guilty of this freewheeling, then so be itā¦
Read an article that Gakpo might be offered as the sacrificial lamb in some sort of player exchange for Diomande
Iām oddly curious based on the number of times a players has but rumored to be included as a make weight in a deal bs the number of times it actually happened, what would we all guess the percentage is? 3%? .0000001432%?
Just want to say Cody Gakpo is a good player. Weāve had some elite forwards in his position, and heās not that, so he suffers in comparison. Add to that an iffy season - not just for him, but for the vast majority of them, and there is a real danger of going overboard on him.
Letās see what we end up doing in the market this summer. My best guess is we sign two wingers, and when added to Rio - an emerging talent who simply must get more minutes - Cody Gakpo will understandably be considering his options.
I think he is worth Ā£70M of anyoneās money, and that will be underscored by a solid World Cup in which is one of the main men for the Netherlands.
As it happens Ā£70M sounds like a lot, but it is not what it used to be! I fully expect one of our wingers to cost a fair bit more, and depending on budget, the other might come in at less than Codyās value, but he will represent a win-win if he is sold - a chance to be more of a main man elsewhere, while we accept a solid fee as part of the business of football.
Letās see what happens, but Spurs look like they are splashing the cash a bit, as Iām sure they want to be up in the European spots in the Prem now that they survived a big scare. There will probably be other suitors if it looks like a move is on the cards.
I remember him having a fair bit of noise around him being scouted by a number of Premier League clubs when he broke into the Bristol City team when he was very young.
Canāt remember if we were one of the teams or not that was keeping tabs on him