Cody Gakpo Requests Transfer from Liverpool Amid Managerial Changes

Cody Gakpo has asked to leave Liverpool, with the fallout from Arne Slot’s sacking now stretching into the dressing room and threatening to reshape the club’s forward line.

The Netherlands international, signed for an initial £37m in January 2022, has formally submitted a transfer request because he “does not see a future at The Reds without Slot”, according to Dutch outlet Soccernews. For a player who only last year signed a lucrative new deal through to June 2030, it marks a sharp turn in a relationship that once looked central to Liverpool’s long-term planning.

From title driver to lightning rod

Gakpo’s numbers at Liverpool are solid: 50 goals and 23 assists in 180 appearances, with 15 goal contributions in the Premier League last season as he helped drive Slot’s side to the title in the Dutch coach’s first year in charge.

That title win, though, feels a long time ago.

This season Liverpool slid to a fifth-placed finish in defence of their crown. Performances dipped, tension grew, and Slot ultimately paid with his job. In the stands and online, frustration often landed at Gakpo’s feet. He became a convenient symbol for what many supporters felt was going wrong.

Fans repeatedly questioned why Slot persisted with him ahead of teenage sensation Rio Ngumoha, whose cameos lit up games and stirred the hunger for something new. Slot stayed loyal. He kept picking Gakpo, backed his experience, and Liverpool doubled down by handing the winger that £250,000-a-week contract.

Now Slot has gone. And Gakpo, stripped of his strongest ally, wants out.

Iraola era starts with a storm

Andoni Iraola has arrived to pick up the pieces. The Basque coach steps into a club that has just lost its manager, is braced for the exit of a modern icon in Mohamed Salah, and must now deal with a senior forward actively pushing for the door.

Sources have told TEAMtalk that Liverpool are open to selling Gakpo this summer and will not stand in his way. No internal battle, no public standoff. If the right bid lands, the club are prepared to sanction his departure.

That stance is striking, given both the length and value of his contract and the looming void on the right flank once Salah’s exit is completed. Liverpool need wingers. They know it. Fabrizio Romano said in March, even before Salah’s departure became official, that it “will be a busy summer for Liverpool with wingers” and that the club “need to add something fresh in that position”.

Freshness now looks less like an option and more like a necessity.

Atletico circle as Griezmann replacement

Across Europe, the situation has not gone unnoticed. Soccernews report that Atletico Madrid “have ears for a collaboration” with Gakpo as they search for a replacement for Antoine Griezmann, who is heading to MLS side Orlando City after his contract with the La Liga club expired.

Atletico would need to pay heavily. Gakpo is currently valued at around €60m (£52m) by Transfermarkt, and the Dutch report notes that “a lot of payment will have to be made” to get him out of Anfield. Yet the same report stresses that a deal is “not impossible”.

For Liverpool, that kind of fee for a player who wants to leave and whose role is already under fierce scrutiny may be tempting. For Atletico, Gakpo offers age, versatility across the front line and a proven goal threat at elite level. Both clubs are entering periods of attacking reconstruction. Their needs align.

A fault line in Liverpool’s rebuild

Beneath the transfer figures lies a deeper question about Liverpool’s direction.

Gakpo was meant to be one of the pillars of the post-Salah, post-Jürgen Klopp era. Instead, his time at Anfield risks being defined by one title-winning season followed by a year in which he became a scapegoat and then a departure trigger by his manager’s dismissal.

If he goes, Iraola will walk into a summer where Liverpool must replace Salah, potentially Gakpo, and still lift a squad that has just crashed from champions to fifth. Recruitment in the wide areas, already urgent, becomes critical to the club’s ability to stay at the sharp end of the Premier League.

Gakpo has made his move. Now Liverpool must decide whether his exit becomes a clean break that funds a new forward line, or the first crack in a far larger reshaping of their attack.