‘Needs to get involved’ – Sky pundit slams Liverpool player who actually won 11 duels tonight

Liverpool tasted defeat for only the sixth time this season tonight, but none were as shocking or thoroughly deserved as the 3-0 thrashing by Atalanta at Anfield.

The Reds’ Europa League campaign is hanging by a threat after that appalling result and performance, and frankly too many of the players failed to get anywhere near the levels we know they’re capable of reaching.

One of those to come in for criticism was Cody Gakpo, who was called out by Jay Bothroyd on Sky Sports News during the second half.

The ex-Blackburn striker said: “Gakpo needs to get involved in the game. He hasn’t done much at all.”

Gakpo was actually one of Liverpool’s better performers on a wretched night, not that the bar was set especially high.

He was the only man in the starting XI to be given a rating higher than five in Ian Doyle’s damning post-match verdict in the Liverpool Echo, having enjoyed a promising start to the game with a few promising runs along the left flank before fading along with his team’s European hopes as the match progressed.

As per Sofascore, the Dutchman won a team-high 11 duels on the night, completed five of his six dribbles, played five key passes and drew four fouls, standing out as the one player who at least gave Atalanta something to think about when the tie was still in the balance.

Gakpo has had some frustrating performances in recent weeks, but tonight he was arguably the Liverpool player least deserving of criticism, which makes Bothroyd’s comments seem quite peculiar.

That’ll come as little consolation to the 24-year-old, though, with he and his teammates left with a rather sobering postmortem to conduct after a nightmare result.