Liverpool’s summer window has turned into one of the most chaotic attacking reshuffles the club has undergone in years, and right at the center of it sits Cody Gakpo. For most of last season he was the automatic starter on the left, the guy Arne Slot and now Andoni Iraola could pencil in without a second thought. That certainty has completely evaporated in the space of a few weeks. With Bradley Barcola closing in on a move from Paris Saint-Germain worth up to £120 million, Gakpo suddenly finds himself fighting for a shirt he used to own outright, and the whole situation has sparked exactly the kind of debate fans love to have in late August: stay or go, and if he stays, where does he even fit?
The obvious read on this is that Barcola arriving spells the end for Gakpo at Anfield. He is a left winger, Gakpo is a left winger, and clubs generally do not spend north of a hundred million pounds on a player just to have him rotate evenly with someone else in the same position. That logic makes sense on paper, and it is why so much of the reporting over the last week has framed Gakpo’s departure as close to inevitable. Tottenham have been strongly linked, reportedly willing to offer close to a hundred million dollars, and Manchester City have also been mentioned as interested parties. When two Premier League heavyweights are circling a 27-year-old Dutch international with Liverpool title-winning pedigree, you have to take that seriously as a real possibility rather than just transfer window noise.
But here is where it gets interesting, and where the idea in the original post actually holds up better than you might expect. Liverpool are not just signing Barcola to nail down the left wing. They are also dealing with a genuinely worrying situation up front. Hugo Ekitike is set to be out for several months, which leaves Alexander Isak as the only fit senior centre-forward on the books. Isak himself has had a rough time with fitness since his big move to Merseyside, and anyone who has followed his career even loosely knows injuries have been a recurring theme rather than a one-off setback. That is a genuinely precarious position for a club with title and Champions League ambitions to be in. One knock, one tweak, one bad landing, and Liverpool could be left with zero recognized strikers in the building.
This is exactly why the idea of Gakpo sticking around as a backup No. 9 is not some fringe theory, it is being talked about by outlets covering the club directly. Gakpo has played through the middle before, both for Liverpool in patches and earlier in his career, and he has the physical profile for it: strong hold-up play, comfortable running in behind, and a decent aerial presence for a player who came through as a winger. He is not going to replicate exactly what Isak brings, nobody realistically expects that, but as an emergency option who can start a handful of games and change the picture off the bench, he ticks a lot of boxes that a makeshift striker usually cannot. Liverpool having Barcola, Rio Ngumoha, and Victor Munoz stacked up on the left flank only reinforces the logic. If the club is that deep out wide, converting Gakpo into a hybrid winger-forward who can plug the biggest hole in the squad is a far more sensible use of a good player than simply cashing him in for the sake of tidying up the depth chart.
There is also a financial and squad-building argument for keeping him that often gets lost in the excitement of transfer gossip. Selling Gakpo and then needing to dip back into the market for cover at centre-forward is not exactly efficient business, especially this late in a window where prices are inflated and good strikers are hard to find on short notice. Liverpool have already been busy: the Barcola deal alone is eating a significant chunk of the budget, and reports have them chasing additional bodies on the right flank too, with names like Ismaila Sarr and Yankuba Minteh floated as targets. Adding “emergency striker” to that shopping list on top of everything else would stretch things even further. Retaining Gakpo essentially solves two problems for the price of zero additional spending: cover in behind Isak, and a squad player who already understands the system, the dressing room, and the demands of Anfield.
None of this means the transfer speculation is baseless or that a sale is off the table completely. Reports over the past few days have consistently mentioned Gakpo’s future hinging on exactly how the Barcola deal shakes out, and there is a version of events where Liverpool decide that having four legitimate left-wing options, counting Barcola, Ngumoha, Munoz and Gakpo, is simply too many bodies for one position, no matter how useful Gakpo might be as backup up top. Squads have finite minutes to go around, and a player of Gakpo’s caliber will not be content rotting on the bench for a full season, even if the club values him as insurance. There have also been noises from people close to the club, including former players speaking publicly, cautioning against selling him at all, which shows this is a live and genuinely contested debate inside Liverpool’s football operations rather than a done deal in either direction.
What makes this particular situation compelling from a fan’s perspective is that it is not just about squad depth, it is about identity. Gakpo has been a reliable, versatile piece of the Liverpool machine since his January 2023 arrival from PSV. He was part of the group that delivered the Premier League title, he has chipped in with important goals in big games, and he has never really complained about being shuffled around the front three depending on what the team needed that week. That kind of flexibility is genuinely rare and genuinely valuable, particularly in a season where a title challenge and probably a deep European run are both realistic targets. Managers love players who do not sulk when asked to play out of position, and Iraola inheriting a squad with that kind of adaptable piece already built in is not something you throw away lightly just because a flashier, more expensive alternative has arrived at the same position.
There is also the human angle worth considering. Gakpo has shown no outward signs of wanting to leave. He was on the scoresheet in a recent Premier League draw and has continued to start games even amid swirling transfer talk, which suggests either that he is comfortable competing for his spot or that he simply has not been given a concrete enough offer elsewhere to start agitating for an exit. Players in genuinely miserable situations tend to let it show, in body language, in press conferences, in performances that dip noticeably. That has not really been the case here. If anything, the noise around him seems to be coming from outside the player himself, driven by transfer journalists connecting dots between Barcola’s arrival and the obvious numbers problem it creates on the left flank.
Barcola himself is worth a mention here too, because his arrival is not just about adding a name, it is about adding a specific profile of player. He is quick, direct, and predominantly a left-sided threat who thrives running at defenders in transition. That is a different template than what Gakpo offers, who tends to be more of a all-around, link-play type winger who can also finish chances created by others rather than purely a one-on-one specialist. Different profiles at the same nominal position is actually a decent reason for a club to want to keep both, provided minutes can be managed sensibly across a long season that includes domestic cups, a title race, and continental football. Rotation is not a dirty word for a club with Liverpool’s ambitions; it is a necessity, especially when injuries to key players like Ekitike and the fragility around Isak are already part of the equation this early in the campaign.
Zooming out a bit, this whole scenario is a pretty good snapshot of how modern elite squads actually get built. It is rarely as simple as “sign a player, sell the incumbent.” Clubs like Liverpool are constantly balancing multiple positions at once, weighing not just who starts on opening day but who covers when things inevitably go wrong over a 50-plus game season. Gakpo potentially sliding into a false nine or backup centre-forward role while Barcola nails down the first-choice left wing spot is a textbook example of squad engineering rather than simple one-for-one replacement. It lets Liverpool have their cake and eat it too: a marquee, expensive new starter out wide, and a versatile, homegrown-feeling squad piece who already knows the club inside out providing cover in a position of genuine concern.
Of course, none of this guarantees Gakpo actually stays. Football transfer windows are famously unpredictable in their final days, and a concrete, well-structured bid from Tottenham or another suitor could still change the calculus entirely, especially if Liverpool decide the money on offer is simply too good to turn down with their business elsewhere largely wrapped up. Clubs also sometimes prioritize squad harmony over pure logic, and having four players who all consider themselves left-wing starters could create exactly the kind of dressing room tension that pushes a club toward cashing in on the one with the highest resale value rather than the one with the most tactical utility. There is a real world where Liverpool decide it is cleaner, both financially and in terms of squad management, to let Gakpo go and instead bring in a specialist backup striker or trust Isak’s fitness to hold up.
Still, weighing everything that has come out over the past week, the argument for Gakpo staying feels stronger than the simple “one signing pushes one player out” narrative that dominated headlines the moment the Barcola deal started gaining traction. The injury situation at centre-forward is real and immediate, not hypothetical. Gakpo’s versatility is proven, not theoretical. And the reported hesitation from parts of the club about selling him outright suggests this is not a formality, it is an actual internal debate playing out in real time as the window winds down. If Liverpool do keep him and lean on him as emergency cover for Isak while Barcola takes over on the left, it would not just be a sensible outcome, it would be a genuinely smart piece of squad building in a summer that has otherwise felt reactive and occasionally chaotic for the Reds.
So where does that leave things heading into the final days of the window? Watching. Everyone connected to the club, from supporters to pundits to reportedly people inside the building itself, seems to be waiting to see exactly how the Barcola paperwork gets finalized before the Gakpo situation resolves one way or the other. If the Barcola move completes cleanly and Liverpool feel comfortable with their left-wing depth, the pressure to offload Gakpo eases considerably, especially with Isak’s fitness looming as the far bigger concern for the season ahead. If instead Liverpool decide the squad is simply too bloated out wide and a big offer lands from Tottenham or elsewhere, this whole conversation becomes moot within days.
Either way, this is shaping up to be one of the more fascinating subplots of Liverpool’s summer business, precisely because it is not a simple story of a player being pushed out by a bigger, shinier signing. It is a genuine puzzle involving squad balance, injury risk at a crucial position, and the value of a proven, adaptable player who has already delivered for the club when it mattered most. Whichever way it breaks, it says a lot about how modern squads actually get shaped behind the scenes, well beyond the headline transfer fees and unveiling photos.
What’s your take on all this? Does keeping Gakpo around as backup cover for Isak make sense to you, or do you think Liverpool should cash in while Tottenham and City are still circling?