During Liverpool’s friendly against Como at Anfield on Sunday, Cody Gakpo showed no signs of being distracted by the considerable speculation surrounding his future.
The Netherlands forward opened the scoring for the Reds midway through the first half and then teed up a debut goal for Jeremy Jacquet shortly before the interval.
The 27-year-old continues to be a primary transfer target for Tottenham Hotspur, with Dutch journalist Rik Elfrink claiming that our number 18 would be open to joining the north Londoners and that LFC ‘now seem willing’ to sanction an exit for him.
Iraola may be open to Gakpo exit if replacements are signed
According to a report for TEAMtalk on Monday, Liverpool would be prepared to let Gakpo leave, but only if adqeuate attacking cover is brought in during the final two weeks of August.
New head coach Andoni Iraola is understood to be ‘comfortable’ with letting the Dutchman go, but again that’d only be the case if a replacement were signed, with the Reds continuing to be strongly linked with Paris Saint-Germain wingers Bradley Barcola and Ibrahim Mbaye.
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Liverpool shouldn’t be too hasty in letting Gakpo leave
If LFC were to pull off the marquee addition of the France international, such would be the surplus of left-sided wingers in the squad that, purely in terms of personnel, they’d have enough scope to sanction an exit for Gakpo and still have plenty of depth in that position.
However, after another impressive World Cup in which he scored three times, the 27-year-old has looked sharp in his first two games back for Liverpool, particularly the win over Como as he registered a goal and an assist.
As The Athletic‘s Gregg Evans wrote, the Dutchman can be ‘a real handful and an important source of goals’ when he’s at his best and playing with ‘direct attacking poise’, something we didn’t see often enough from him during a disappointing 2025/26 campaign by his standards.
Transfer insider Pete O’Rourke mentioned an asking price of £70m for Gakpo in recent days (Football Insider), and having bought him for £44m at the tail end of 2022 (Daily Mail), Anfield chiefs may feel that a £26m profit would be foolish to turn down.
In pure business terms that’d absolutely be the case, but our number 18 showed on Sunday why the club ought not to be too hasty in bundling him out the door in the final fortnight of the transfer window, especially if the pursuits of Barcola and Mbaye hit a dead end.