Q&ACody Gakpo interview: 'It's time to show Anfield what we are made of'

The Reds host AFC Bournemouth on Saturday, seven days on from their 1-0 home reverse to Nottingham Forest – a loss that marked their first defeat of the season and, indeed, the Arne Slot era.

Slot’s team produced an impressive reaction to that setback in midweek by running out comprehensive 3-1 victors over AC Milan at San Siro in their Champions League opener.

And Gakpo has outlined the squad’s determination to deliver a contrasting performance to their display against Forest when Bournemouth visit L4.

“I think it’s good to be back [at Anfield] and this is the time that we can really show what we are made of to our fans,” the forward told Liverpoolfc.com.

“That’s what we are hoping to do and give them a proper game from our side – and a win.”

Read the rest of our interview with Gakpo at the AXA Training Centre below...

It was a great response in Milan after the disappointment of last Saturday. The mood in the squad must have improved after such an excellent team display?

Yeah, I think it was a good, great response [and] a necessary one and obviously when you win everybody is more happy than when you lose, so the mood is better.

It was your first start of the season at club level, how pleased were you with your own performance?

Obviously I was happy to start and yeah, I think I played a good game. But I was even more happy that we won because in the end you can play good but then if you don’t win, it doesn’t matter.

There is so much competition for places all over the pitch but perhaps particularly in the forward line. Does that motivate you further because when you do get the opportunity, you have to play well?

Yeah, I think there is a lot of competition but I think what you say is right: that will push us to become better players and in the end we will all benefit from that, and hopefully the team does as well – that we can score more, or give more assists or play better and help the team win. And at the end, hopefully that will lead to trophies.

Playing on the left is something you do regularly for the Netherlands but you’ve not always played there for Liverpool – is that where you feel most comfortable?

Yeah, I think I am used to playing on the left so I like that a lot.

Fitness-wise, how do you feel? You started both games for your country in the recent international break as well as against Milan, so are you up to full sharpness now?

Yeah, I feel good. I started the two games with the national team as well, got some minutes in the tank and I feel good at the moment.

This is a time of the season when everyone in the squad is going to be needed because the fixture schedule is relentless. Do you enjoy spells like this as players, though?

Yeah, I think we enjoy it a lot – we would enjoy it all the time if we won every game! But I think the good thing about it is that we lost one game and then we have a game coming up very soon to get our revenge and I think that is also a benefit of it. But I think every player likes to play a lot of games on the highest level and that’s what we do here. So, everybody wants to play.

As a team, what lessons can you learn from the loss against Forest to take into this match against Bournemouth?

That we just have to keep going all the time, keep fighting hard for each other. I think it was not our best game, but we still need to accept that at some point sometimes that happens. We just have to fight for that one goal that will come because we got always some chances. So, we have to fight for that and try to not concede, I think that’s the key thing. I think we have so much quality – obviously it happened that we didn’t score but hopefully it will not happen that much this season, that we don’t score a goal.