Manchester City and Liverpool are strongly interested in Cody Gakpo. Football International and the Eindhovens Dagblad report that the PSV attacker has had exploratory talks with the English top clubs. However, it is the intention that Gakpo will finish the season at PSV and he is about to extend his contract in Eindhoven for another season, until mid-2026.
John de Jong, technical director of PSV, talked to on Sunday ESPN admits that a contract extension of Gakpo is ‘reasonably close’. The 22-year-old attacker is currently detained in Eindhoven until mid-2025. By signing for one year, Gakpo’s transfer value must be in the words of Football International jacked up ‘perhaps to record highs’. In that case, Gakpo must yield more than 35 million euros: for this amount Hirving Lozano made the switch to Napoli in the summer of 2019.
Apparently there is a lot of interest in Gakpo. Bayern Munich previously expressed his interest, but now the attacker has also had exploratory talks with Liverpool and Manchester City. However, PSV does not seem to have to fear a winter departure, as Gakpo considers it best for his development to finish the season in Eindhoven. But things now seem to be ‘getting up to speed’ towards the summer.
“Looks like I’m going to renew my contract,” he said Football International up from the mouth of Gakpo. “The clubs that want something are also known to me, I’ve had conversations about that with my agent. Very interesting clubs have been added, but we have to look at what the first step is. At the moment my focus is not there and I had better things to do on Sunday.”
“In the future, he will go to a top club in one of the top competitions,” PSV coach Roger Schmidt predicted on Monday morning. The Telegraph. “Whether that will happen next summer is difficult to say. If you look at Liverpool players like Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah, Gakpo still has a few steps to take. These are not only great football players, but also excellent team players who fully participate in the defense. Gakpo still needs to improve on that point.”
Gakpo, four-time international for the the Dutch squad, has been playing in the PSV youth academy since 2007. The attacker broke through in the first half of 2019 in the main squad of the Eindhoven team and now has 116 games to his name, in which he was good for 31 goals and 29 assists. Despite being out of action for a while this season with an ankle injury, he is making quite an impression in Schmidt’s side with 10 goals and 11 assists in 28 games.