International Update: Oranje Edition
The Dutch contingent made some big waves over the weekend.
Before the break, you would maybe be forgiven if you thought that Jurgen Klopp might have had an obvious answer as to which constellation of Liverpool’s talented attackers would take the mantle of first choice. After a gritty cameo to slay Newcastle while down a man, and then a solid run out against Villa where he clearly looked to be a menace, Darwin Nunez looked to have moved ahead of Cody Gakpo to take the central spot between Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah.
It isn’t necessarily that Gakpo played his way out of that spot, but rather that Nunez’s electric style and that tantalizing sense that sky’s the limit when he’s on the pitch seemed to finally overtake the Dutchman’s poised run out in the False Nine. Young Cody had different thoughts, however, with his form with the Oranje during this break seeming to add a new wrinkle in one of the more interesting positional battles during this iteration of Jurgen’s Reds.
On Sunday, Gakpo tucked away a crucial penalty that served as an equalizer against the Republic of Ireland in Euro qualifying. The Dutch went on to complete the comeback, winning the match 2-1 and closing out the break with 2 wins out of 2 in their quest to make it to Germany for the finals next summer.
Given Nunez’s own scintillating form during break, it’s a great problem for Jurgen to have. With the cup competitions starting up, we’ll need everyone in top form to keep the quest to go deep in each competition alive.
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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