Cody Gakpo has not yet got going at Liverpool. Whoever takes over from Jürgen Klopp at Anfield will need to get to the bottom of the attacker as soon as possible.

No Liverpool player truly stood out in either a positive or a negative sense against Manchester United.

It was a poor performance, in truth, even if had just one of Jürgen Klopp’s attackers made it 3-1 instead of wasting chance after chance, the narrative would have been completely different.

Caoimhín Kelleher and Alexis Mac Allister, after the latter got over a shaky start, both impressed. Few others really did more than average.

Manchester United won, but Erik ten Hag’s side is not good. The gaps in the center of the pitch were incredible at times and the way that Liverpool moved into the final third with ease should be alarming. Manchester United is used to conceding vast amounts of shots, though — even Everton had 23 at Old Trafford just over a week ago.

Liverpool squandered several opportunities to put the tie to bed and then got punished. And while he wasn’t the only one — far from it, in fact — Cody Gakpo really didn’t help in that regard. The Dutch forward just never got into the game and ended up on the other end of the scale ratings-wise than Kelleher and Mac Allister.

Coming on with 13 minutes of normal time to play, Gakpo had a total of 24 touches in the time he was on the field (43 minutes in total including extra time and added time). The thing that stands out the most from his showing was the poor pass when Liverpool had a five-versus-two counter-attack to kill the game.

It is hard to escape the fact that Gakpo made Liverpool worse when he came onto the field. But the bigger picture should still be taken into account when making an assessment of the 24-year-old.

Gakpo has scored 13 times this season but only five of those have come in the Premier League. Without having Champions League football, the top flight is the only competition that you can truly judge him at the top level. He scored two against LASK and two against Sparta Prague while four more goals came in the Carabao Cup.

He might argue, though, quite reasonably, that he has started only 12 out of the 26 league matches for which he has been available. Gakpo is the fifth choice in the pecking order right now but what comes first: regular starts, or regular goals?

There is a big question about where his best position on the field is as well. Though he started the season in the starting team, that was in midfield. Since then, he has played a lot more through the middle in the forward line — but his best position at PSV was always off the left. On that side, Liverpool is well-stocked and he has barely featured there.

One of the most interesting aspects of the job that whoever takes over from Jürgen Klopp will have to undertake is to work out exactly what Gakpo is. Once that happens, you can then start to get more out of his skillset.

There is definitely a player there. His height is a major advantage (albeit currently underused) and he has the ability to link things very intelligently, even if that was forgotten in the crucial moment at Old Trafford. He can beat a man with his dribbling, even if he doesn’t have electric pace, and he can finish. His two goals against Manchester United last season showed that.

Gakpo has definitely got something… but Liverpool is yet to work out exactly what that is. Until that is done, the true value of the $47m (£37m/€43m) signing from the Netherlands will be impossible to calculate.