Which two players have made the most appearances for Liverpool this season?
No, they don’t include Virgil van Dijk, who doesn’t make the top five. Nor involved is the relentless Luis Diaz, although he is a touch nearer to the leading duo. And both Harvey Elliott and the versatile Joe Gomez are very good shouts, but neither forms part of the correct answer.
Give yourself a pat on the back, then, if you guessed nobody has made more outings for Jurgen Klopp’s side this season than Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo with 40 games each.
Of course, a contributory factor is the injury crisis that has afflicted the Liverpool squad for much of the campaign and sidelined almost all of their regular players at some point. That said, both Nunez and Gakpo have had their own spells out through injury, albeit not for an extended period.
And that they are leading the way is all the more surprising given they would both ideally prefer to operate in the same position as centre forward. Gakpo had wrested that slot in the closing months of last term having impressed following his mid-season arrival from PSV Eindhoven, only for Nunez to become the first choice after building on good form during the summer friendlies.
Gakpo’s versatility has been both a blessing and a curse, often making him one of Liverpool’s first substitutes when on the bench but making it difficult for him to nail down a regular role. While a healthy 16 of his 24 starts have been down the middle of the attack, four have been on the right flank, one on the left and three in midfield. By contrast, only twice from 25 has Nunez started a match not as the central striker.
Those spells as an emergency midfielder for Gakpo came in two batches, one at the beginning of the season and another in mid-November. And Klopp last month apologised for checking the momentum of the 24-year-old. “Cody had a bit of a struggle in between the season, it was more my fault,” said the Reds boss. “We spoke about can Cody play a midfield position for us, yes he can in different moments. Is it his position? I would say no.”
Nevertheless, with 11 goals and five assists, Gakpo has still made a decent attacking contribution, although it can’t quite match that of Nunez, who now has 16 goals and 12 assists. In terms of minutes on the pitch this campaign, the Uruguayan has played only 87 more than his team-mate, although both trail Van Dijk, Diaz, Gomez and Alexis Mac Allister in that regard.
Despite their regular outings, the Europa League round of 16 first-leg win at Sparta Prague last Thursday was only the seventh time Nunez and Gakpo had lined up in the same starting line-up this season. Nor it is usually a case of one or the other given they have shared a pitch in 23 games, although they have replaced each other during the course of a match on 11 occasions with Nunez having come on for Gakpo five times this campaign and the reverse happening on six occasions.
The most recent of the latter was on Sunday when Nunez, having won the penalty from which Mac Allister ultimately earned a point against Premier League title rivals Manchester City, was substituted with 14 minutes remaining.
If the subsequent performance from Gakpo wasn’t as sharp as his new haircut, there is some mitigation for the Dutchman. The ongoing injury crisis – which particularly hit the forward line, with Mohamed Salah sidelined for the best part of two months and Diogo Jota and teenager Ben Doak both still out – has meant Klopp had to lean heavily on Gakpo, who had featured for at least 84 minutes in each of the previous five games inside 16 days before City’s visit.
While Salah is now back available, Liverpool’s 5-1 advantage going into Thursday’s return clash against Sparta at Anfield means the Egyptian is unlikely to be risked from the start with Gakpo almost certainly having to go again from the start, not least with the Reds still mindful of the hamstring injury from which Nunez has recently returned.
In chasing down an unprecedented quadruple while contending with so many absences, Klopp has had to use 34 different players this season. And none, in often different ways, have been relied upon more than Nunez and Gakpo.
