Six days before Andoni Iraola takes charge of his first Premier League match as Liverpool head coach, Cody Gakpo’s future remains unresolved.
The Dutch forward has spent much of the summer at the centre of transfer speculation. Reports in the Netherlands last week suggested Gakpo had reached an agreement in principle with Tottenham over personal terms, with figures in the region of £60m to £70m discussed around a possible transfer.
Liverpool’s position is more complicated.
The club are not thought to be actively looking to sell Gakpo and are unlikely to sanction an exit without securing further attacking reinforcements first.
Both things can be true.
Players can be open to moves that never actually happen.
The Barcola domino
Bradley Barcola appears to be the most important piece of the puzzle.
Liverpool have pursued the Paris Saint-Germain winger during the summer, with discussions continuing into August. Reports have suggested the player is receptive to the move, although agreeing a fee with PSG remains the more significant obstacle.
There are other options too.
PSG youngster Ibrahim Mbaye has also been linked with Liverpool, with the teenager reportedly valued in the €40m to €50m range.
Both Barcola and Mbaye were left out of PSG’s squad for their Ligue 1 opener on 16 August, although that alone is not evidence that either player is about to leave.
The sequencing nevertheless matters.
Selling Gakpo before Liverpool know what their forward line will look like in September would leave Iraola taking an unnecessary risk.
Ror Gakpo, it means his future may partly depend on negotiations taking place elsewhere.
What Liverpool would be losing
The transfer speculation can make it easy to overlook what Gakpo has actually contributed.
He joined Liverpool from PSV in January 2023 and reached 50 goals for the club in May this year, having made around 180 competitive appearances.
His best Liverpool season came during the title-winning 2024-25 campaign under Arne Slot.
Gakpo scored 18 goals in all competitions, second only to Mohamed Salah in the squad.
One of them came in the 5-1 victory over Tottenham at Anfield in April 2025 that mathematically secured Liverpool’s Premier League title.
There would be a certain irony in Spurs now taking him away.
Last season was more difficult, both individually and collectively. Liverpool followed the title by finishing fifth in 2025-26, and Slot departed at the end of the campaign.
Now Iraola is rebuilding the side in his own image.
Why the ground has shifted
Gakpo’s situation is not necessarily a reflection of his quality.
The context around him has changed.
A new manager has arrived with different ideas about how Liverpool should attack. The pursuit of Barcola suggests the club still want another high-level option from the left, while Rio Ngumoha’s development gives Iraola another player capable of operating in wide areas.
Gakpo’s versatility has traditionally helped him.
He can play from the left, through the middle and in different attacking structures.
But a squad undergoing another major rebuild inevitably creates difficult decisions, particularly when significant transfer fees are available for players already on the books.
At the right price, almost every decision becomes a calculation.
The depth problem nobody has solved
There is a strong argument for keeping him.
Liverpool’s attacking group is hardly overflowing with certainty.
Salah left for Trabzonspor earlier this month, removing the club’s defining forward of the past decade.
Hugo Ekitike remains sidelined with a long-term injury. Alexander Isak is back playing and scored during pre-season against Monaco, but he is still building sharpness after an injury-disrupted first campaign at Liverpool.
Federico Chiesa remains another experienced option, while the likes of Ngumoha and Víctor Muñoz provide youth and potential rather than guarantees.
In that context, selling a proven Premier League forward before another attacker is through the door would be difficult to justify.
That appears to be why Liverpool have retained control of the situation so far.
Tottenham can afford to ask
Spurs, meanwhile, have already demonstrated their ambition in the market.
Their summer spending has pushed beyond £230m, with Roberto De Zerbi overseeing significant changes to the squad.
Much of that investment has gone into other areas, and strengthening the attack remains part of the work still to be done.
Gakpo makes sense as a target.
He knows the Premier League, can cover several attacking positions and would arrive with considerable experience despite still being in his twenties.
Whether Liverpool are willing to strengthen another major domestic club is another question entirely.
Liverpool remain difficult to price
The uncertainty around Gakpo is one part of a much wider summer transformation.
Anyone looking at the Premier League title odds is assessing a Liverpool side that looks very different from the one that won the league little more than a year ago.
There is a new manager.
Salah has gone.
Ekitike is injured.
Isak is trying to build momentum again.
And one of the club’s most established remaining forwards could still leave before the window closes.
That makes Liverpool unusually difficult to assess before a competitive ball has been kicked.
Two weeks to settle it
Liverpool begin their Premier League campaign away at Newcastle on Sunday 23 August.
The transfer window then closes at 11 pm BST on Tuesday 1 September.
By then, the chain of decisions should finally have resolved itself.
Liverpool need to decide how much they value another season of Gakpo against a substantial transfer fee.
Tottenham need to decide how far they are prepared to push.
And Liverpool’s pursuit of Barcola, Mbaye or another winger may determine how much freedom they have to make the call.
Gakpo may have agreed to the outline of one possible future.
For now, Liverpool still controls whether he gets there.
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