Former Liverpool player Ray Houghton has now been telling one current forward that he desperately needs to improve his game.
Jurgen Klopp’s side travel to Fulham today knowing that nothing less than a win will suffice, especially after Arsenal’s result last night.
In truth, Liverpool will just be focused on catching Manchester City, but either way three points will be needed.
And with today’s game in mind, Klopp does have one or two tough calls to make when it comes to his team selection.
The Liverpool manager can probably only choose three from Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez, Diogo Jota and Cody Gakpo.
None of the five are in exceptional form, even if Jota deserves a bit of leeway in that respect given his recent injury.
The selection is still a ‘positive problem’ for Klopp so to speak, but he will surely demand an improvement from whoever starts.
And with that in mind, Ray Houghton has just been sharing his two cents on talkSPORT.
Ray Houghton believes Cody Gakpo needs to seriously improve for Liverpool
The pundit was speaking about both Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo before the Fulham game, and thought both needed to improve.
But when it came to Gakpo, Houghton was adamant that the forward needed to step up.
He said: “If you look at the actual number of goals he has scored [Nunez], it’s [not bad].
“People tend to forget that because of the chances that he has missed, and that’s always going to be the case, you know that.
“With strikers, it’s all about when you are in the penalty box, do you score enough from the chances that you get, and that’s one of the criticisms with Nunez.
“But others have to step up. Gakpo has got to step up. He has not played an awful lot of games this season. When he comes in, he has got to get in the box.”
Of course, the £35m-forward is often criticised for looking a step behind his teammates of late.
But Cody Gakpo did provide reason for encouragement against Atalanta despite the disappointing outcome of the tie.
The Dutchman looked powerful and determined in the first half on Thursday and combined well with his teammates.
Perhaps he does need to improve the timing of his runs into the box as Houghton states, but there’s certainly reason to keep faith at Liverpool.
All that being said, Paul Merson has just shared his score prediction for today’s game.
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