Arne Slot admitted Cody Gakpo “struggled to dominate” his duel with the Sunderland defence as Liverpool were forced to settle for a frustrating 1-1 draw at Anfield.
Gakpo started on the right of the front three on Wednesday night but was hooked at half-time, with Mohamed Salah sent on in his place as Slot chased a game that was slipping away. Florian Wirtz eventually rescued a point with a deflected effort after Chemsdine Talbi had fired the visitors in front.
Slot, though, was honest about why he felt he had to make the change.
“In my opinion, Cody struggled to dominate the one-v-ones,” the Liverpool head coach explained afterwards. “If you want to have any chance against them… the way to score is quite simple: you need a moment of magic from a player or you need a set-piece to score.
“I felt in the first half Cody struggled to find that moment because it was hard for him to dominate the one-v-one or get crosses in.”
Salah switch doesn’t fully fix Liverpool attack
With Liverpool again looking blunt, Slot reshuffled at the break. Salah moved into his usual role on the right, while Wirtz operated from the left as the hosts tried to stretch a stubborn Sunderland back line.
The change was logical but not transformative. Salah had a bright spell shortly after coming on before the game drifted away from him, and Liverpool were once more reliant on a stroke of luck rather than clear-cut creativity to get back on terms.
Slot made clear the tweak was also partly about tightening things up behind the ball, having used Dominik Szoboszlai on the right from the start to offer extra protection.
“In the first half, we played with Szoboszlai off the right to be defensively strong enough not to concede as much as we did in the last few weeks,” Slot said. “I changed it to Mo on the right side and then played with Florian Wirtz off the left.
“We hardly conceded, but it was throughout the whole game difficult to create that moment of magic.”
Sunderland’s defensive record underlines Liverpool frustration
Slot also underlined that this was never going to be a game where chances flowed freely. Sunderland arrived at Anfield with one of the best defensive records in the Premier League this season, and set up exactly as the Dutchman expected.
“[Sunderland] didn’t do anything that surprised me,” he said. “We know they can press really high and defend with 11 players around their box – that is what many teams do in the Premier League.
“I knew before the game, when you play Sunderland, from the 14 games they have played now they have only conceded four times more than one goal, and in these four games they’ve only conceded two.”
That context doesn’t remove the sense of disappointment around Anfield, though. For all Sunderland’s discipline and work rate, Liverpool’s front line again looked short of rhythm and cohesion, with Wirtz the only attacker to truly impress across the 90 minutes.
Big call coming on Salah and Gakpo
Gakpo was far from the only forward to misfire, but being sacrificed at the break inevitably shines a harsher light on his display. He never truly threatened his full-back, rarely delivered quality into the area and struggled to provide the “moment of magic” his manager craved.
Salah’s introduction was meant to change the picture; instead, it has simply sharpened the debate over how Slot sets up his attack for the trip to Leeds at the weekend. Does he restore Salah from the start and shuffle Wirtz and Gakpo around again, or does the Dutch winger pay the price for another subdued outing?
Slot’s post-match comments made one thing clear: in tight games against organised opponents, he expects his wide players to win their duels. Against Sunderland, by his own admission, Gakpo didn’t – and Liverpool dropped more points because of it.
