There are players who court controversy and players who just get on with it. Cody Gakpo is very much the latter, and according to Jason McAteer, that quiet professionalism is precisely why he ended up carrying the can for a lot of things last season that were never really his fault.

McAteer, who made 139 appearances for Liverpool after joining from Bolton Wanderers in 1995, has spoken up for Gakpo at a time when the forward's future at the club looks anything but certain. With Liverpool actively pursuing Paris Saint-Germain winger Bradley Barcola and teenager Rio Ngumoha turning heads at the end of last season, the pressure on Gakpo from all sides is real and increasing.

But McAteer is not ready to write him off. Not even close.

"When a football club doesn't do as well as people expect, or expectations drop or levels drop, then fans will look to find blame somewhere," he told Betarades.gr. "Whether it's the board, the manager or the players. I felt, last season, Cody took a lot of criticism, and unfair criticism. I think Cody Gakpo is a really hard-working individual who always tries his best for the team. He will nick a goal. He can be predictable, he can drop in and out of games. At times he can be frustrating but listen, that's the life of a winger in the Premier League."

It is a fair point, and one that often gets lost in the noise. Gakpo made 36 Premier League appearances for Arne Slot's side last season, chipping in with seven goals. Those are not the numbers of a passenger. But the criticism that followed him — too predictable, too lightweight in the final third, too inconsistent — stuck in a way that perhaps it would not have done for another player at a club performing better.

McAteer's theory on why Gakpo bore the brunt is worth sitting with. "At a time when the club wasn't doing well, and people wanted to point fingers, it was easy to point one at Cody because he's not going to throw his arms up, he's not gonna kick a fuss up, he's not gonna go to the newspapers, he's not gonna have a go at the crowd. I felt he was an easy target."

There is something brutally honest in that assessment. Supporters, when frustrated, often direct their ire at the quieter figures. The ones who get on with their work, do not manufacture headlines, and do not push back publicly. Gakpo has never been that player who demands attention or deflects blame. He turns up, trains, plays, and keeps his counsel. In a results business, that restraint can sometimes be mistaken for indifference.

McAteer also flagged something interesting about Gakpo's performances at international level, noting that he seems to genuinely thrive when pulling on the Dutch shirt. "Cody seems to relish playing for his country. I played with players who seemed to really enjoy going away on international duty. They felt more comfortable and you'd get better performances, or it looked that way." It is an observation that raises its own questions about environment, confidence, and where a player feels most at ease — questions Liverpool's management will no doubt be considering as they assess where Gakpo fits into their long-term picture.

Because that picture is changing. Ngumoha's emergence gave supporters a glimpse of something raw and exciting, and the appetite for more of that flair was evident. McAteer acknowledged as much. "He was under pressure last season from Rio. Everyone wanted to see a bit more of the exciting, flair, guile player. Everybody loves that kind of player. This World Cup was littered with them and we're all talking about individuals. But sometimes you need a bit of a team player and that's what Cody is. So he was always fighting it."

Gakpo arrived at Liverpool from PSV Eindhoven in January 2023 in a deal worth around £37 million. He has never quite been the definitive answer to the left-sided attacking role, but he has been a reliable and versatile contributor. The question now is whether that reliability is enough when the club are chasing Barcola, a French international who also prefers the left, and when Ngumoha is knocking loudly on the door.

It is worth noting that Andoni Iraola has already moved in the market this summer, bringing in Spanish World Cup winner Victor Munoz as a wide option. The direction of travel is clear. Liverpool are building attacking depth, and with that comes hard choices about who stays and who eventually moves on.

McAteer's verdict is that Gakpo should still have a future here. Whether the club shares that view is the question that will define the Dutch forward's summer.

The next few weeks could tell us everything about where Gakpo sits in Liverpool's thinking — and whether the trust he has shown in keeping his head down is about to be rewarded or quietly moved on.