Liverpool ran out 5-2 winners over West Ham United on Saturday afternoon in a dominant home display and Cody Gakpo received a wealth of praise from his team-mates for the imperative part he played
Cody Gakpo celebrates
Liverpool star Cody Gakpo ruled the roost against West Ham(Image: Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
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Andrew Robertson seemingly told Cody Gakpo that he has silenced his haters with a fine performance against West Ham United on Saturday. Liverpool ran out 5-2 winners over the Hammers at Anfield during their encounter, with Gakpo topping off an incredible match with a goal late on.
Hugo Ekitike opened the scoring for the hosts five minutes into play, before goals from Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister ensured that the Reds headed down the tunnel at the end of the opening period with a 3-0 lead. While Tomas Soucek and Valentin Castellanos tried to rain of the Reds' parade late on, their efforts bore no fruit as Gakpo and an own goal from Axel Disasi put the game out of reach.
Marking the win in a moment of celebration following a season largely shrouded with criticism, Gakpo took to Instagram to share a series of snaps from the match while writing: "Praise him." And it didn't take his Liverpool team-mates to flood the comments section with words of support.
Robertson, for instance, wrote: "Silence," with an emoji of a face with a finger over its lips, seemingly alluding to how the Dutchman's performance should have shut out his haters. Ibrahima Konate, meanwhile, added: "You deserved it so much my Brother," on the face of things nodding to how Gakpo has had to weather a storm of scrutiny to have his day in the sun.
Elsewhere, Ekitike, Ryan Gravenberch and Rio Ngumoha also left kind words, while Dutch team-mates Denzel Dumfries and Nigel Thomas also handed Gakpo his flowers. Lifelong Liverpool fan and former pro footballer Adebayo Akinfenwa also praised the 26-year-old.
As a result of the win, Liverpool sit fifth in the Premier League standings with just ten games of 2025/26 remaining, putting themselves in the frame to qualify for European football once more next season. Speaking about momentum going forward at full-time, Arne Slot said: "Yeah, I think we've had [it] more than a few times, momentum.
"But if you have a run of games that we had, so many losses in a row, then every time you lose a game again then you fall back a lot - if I explain myself well enough in English. But now for quite a long time, it's very hard to beat us.
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"I think 21 games, two losses, both in extra time - when we concede a goal in extra time. So yeah, we are improving, that's obvious, in open play but definitely also in set pieces. And as a result of that, we are getting more results in as well."
Speaking directly about how his team have improved in terms of set-pieces, meanwhile, Slot explained in his post-match press conference: "That's very pleasing, first of all because that's the reason why we won, second of all because when I was just standing around your colleagues people said, 'Well played, well played.'
"And I said, 'In my opinion, we've played better this season.' [Sic] It wasn't the best game of our season, we've played better when we've lost. We played better when we've conceded set-pieces.
"But as I always said, things went back to normal. We created quite a lot of chances from set-pieces in the first part of this season, and almost every set-piece we conceded went in. And today, you could see exactly the opposite happening."
Up next for Liverpool is a Premier League match against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux come Tuesday, March 3.
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