On Gakpo, who has now scored 16 times already this season, equalling his tally from the whole of 2023-24…
I have no clue [how many goals he could end the season with], I am not so much into how many goals they score. I know if they work as hard as they do and they bring the ball out of the back as well as they do then we will always score goals because of the quality players we have, but these goals don’t come from itself. If you look at the third goal, the effort Conor Bradley puts in as a full-back to sprint all over the pitch and then assist Dom, that is just as important as the one that scores goals.
I think it was Curtis [Jones], when Mo who crossed it in, he went for it, that’s why the full-back had a little bit of doubt and the ball falls then to Cody. And if it is Cody or Lucho [Luis Diaz] or Diogo [Jota] or Darwin [Nunez] or Mo or Federico [Chiesa], they can all score goals but we have to make sure they come in those positions a lot. Therefore you need to run a lot and that is what they are doing, but Cody has a special season. But second half of last season he was special, during the Euros he was special for Holland, so it doesn’t come falling out of the sky. It’s something he did before.
On how and why the team have got stronger as the season has gone on…
For me, there are two reasons why we’ve become stronger. First of all, if you play more often together you know better what is expected. So, the first time I tell them how to bring the ball out from the back against a seven, nine and 11 press, they were maybe like, ‘OK, this should be done.’ But the more times you face them, the more it just becomes natural for you. That helps. So, the more games you play, the more meetings you have, the more training sessions you have, the better they know what we expect of them and what they have to expect from each other. Second of all, I believe in the fact that the more games you play, the stronger you become, the physically stronger you become. So, some people think you get tired but as long as you manage it well, I think players will get stronger by playing a lot of games instead of getting tired.
