Liverpool spent around £37m to sign Cody Gakpo. It was reported that the Reds had spent their entire January budget on the forward.
Many fans are wondering why the Reds used the money on the Dutchman instead of landing a midfielder.
"Not a criticism of the player himself, but I'd really love to know the thought process that culminated in spending £40m on Gakpo and then proceeding to repeatedly play him out of position while continuing to ignore the embarrassingly obvious need to invest in the midfield," one fan tweeted.
"This isn't a criticism of Gakpo as a player, but sanctioning paying £44m for him and playing him out of position when we've got a glaring midfield issue was stupidity of the highest order," another commented.
"The Gakpo transfer is actually astonishing. Blowing your January budget on a well stocked area instead of the area you literally had to panic to bring someone in for, is just insane," another Red wrote.
We obviously can't get into the heads of Jurgen Klopp and other decision-makers at Liverpool but the winter transfer of Gakpo makes sense on so many levels.
1. Competition. Man United were looking to sign Cody in January so if the Reds hadn't moved fast, he would have been a United player.
2. Reasonable fee. After seeing Chelsea pay around £100m for Mudryk (12 goals in 65 games in the Ukrainian league), one would say that getting Gakpo with his crazy Eredivisie numbers for a relatively small fee is a bargain.
3. Injuries. Firmino, Diaz and Jota are injured. Liverpool don't have any decent options on the left other than Darwin, who should be played as a centre-forward. If the Reds didn't sign Gakpo, Klopp would have been forced to play Ox on the left.
4. Very few good midfielders available. What if Liverpool used the ~£40m Gakpo fee for a midfielder, who would have they signed in January? Enzo Fernandez costs £105m, Brighton are demanding more than £70m for Caicedo while the likes of Saul Niguez and Sander Berge are simply not Liverpool quality.
