Jurgen Klopp on Van Dijk's influence on Cody Gakpo's transfer

• Soccer

Cody Gakpo has been linked for a long time with coming to the Premiership, more precisely to Manchester United. However, Liverpool was quick and they managed to sign this great winger. Many believe that Vin Dijk played the main role, considering that they both play for the Netherlands, but Klopp denied it.

"Virgil had a word before he technically signed, but we didn't tell him specifically to speak to him,"- Klopp said, as quoted by eurosport.com.
"When you are manager of Liverpool, you think you have to convince someone - but then you realise the door is more or less wide open, it's a home run."
Klopp is happy that things ended this early.

“We are very early [with the transfer], which is good. There might be a chance he could play against Brentford, but not really. January 1 is a Bank Holiday, and there's all the papers which would need to be signed on January 2 before lunch time.

I'm not too positive that will happen - but we won't rush it anyway”.

Jurgen Klopp on Cody Gakpo

The German was delighted with what he had to see. "He's a really, really good player. The package is really interesting.
The potential he has, the quality he showed already in Holland and the national team as well.

It makes him a really interesting player. That's why we were very interested to get him in, and I'm really happy we could do it." Jurgen Klopp watched Gakpo at the World Cup as well. He saw the potential of this young Dutchman.

Klopp also emphasized that Gakpo did a great job in defense. "The position he’s played most often is left wing, that’s clear, but he can play in different positions. He can play in all four up front, he’s played in different positions for PSV and Holland.
He’s still very young but he’s been in a really good run of form, not only for PSV but at the World Cup too.

And Holland were playing with a formation which wasn’t necessarily striker friendly, he had to defend a lot, and he did it pretty well. He would probably say himself he prefers to play on the left wing in a 4-3-3. That doesn’t mean he will just do that for us, we know he can play in the other positions”, Klopp said.