Steven Gerrard publicly urged Arne Slot to promote Rio Ngumoha into the starting XI ahead of Liverpool\u2019s FA Cup rematch with Wolverhampton Wanderers, after a performance he described as lacking quality and tempo. Gerrard said on TNT Sports: “For 65 minutes, Liverpool were desperate tonight,” he moaned as part of TNT Sports\u2019 coverage. “Really poor, didn\u2019t create enough. They didn\u2019t play at the right speed [or] the right tempo. They didn\u2019t have enough quality. He has to start Ngumoha now. He has to start because he\u2019s coming on and he\u2019s doing more in a short cameo, in a short space of time, than Gakpo is doing in 65\u201370 minutes. So he deserves to start.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s got to start the kid on Friday night.”<\/p>\n
Gakpo struggled to make a positive case on Tuesday. A late set piece that escaped a Wolves head led to Curtis Jones appearing to chest the ball toward goal only for it to be hooked away, with Gakpo inadvertently implicated in the sequence. The left winger\u2019s season has drawn criticism: he has similar minutes to last term but a reduced goals return, and has not replaced the output lost when Luis D\u00edaz left for Bayern Munich in the summer.<\/p>\n
Yet the wider issue remains collective. Gakpo remains Liverpool\u2019s second top scorer and his per-90 figures show his continued attacking involvement. 2025\u201326 Premier League per-90 data for Gakpo: Games 27; Goals 6 (0.27); Expected Goals 6.2 (0.28); Shots 64 (2.9); Shot on Target 22%; Open Play Assists 2 (0.10); Open Play xA 3.7 (0.17); Open Play Chances Created 35 (1.6); Carries Ending in a Goal\/Assist 2 (0.1); Carries Ending in a Shot\/Chance Created 55 (2.1). Stats via Opta.<\/p>\n
Rio Ngumoha remains a prospect: 17 games, 3 starts, 424 minutes, 1 goal, xG 0.88, 7 shots, 0 assists, 14 chances created. “Rio Ngumoha came on in the 77th minute [and] he did more in 15 minutes than Gakpo and Salah did in the whole game,” Jamie Carragher said. “He changed the game this kid. He needs to be starting games now. He\u2019s that good.”<\/p>\n
Slot has limited Ngumoha to three starts this season, all in cup competition. Even without external pressure, there is a reasonable chance Ngumoha would start Friday\u2019s FA Cup fifth round tie back at Molineux.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gerrard wants Ngumoha to start for Liverpool after Gakpo’s subdued display in the FA Cup tie. Friday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172,783],"tags":[1446,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-7456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","category-wolverhampton-wanderers","tag-academy","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}