Liverpool forward Cody Gakpo says the Reds have "all the pieces" to be successful under Arne Slot — with a key message from Virgil van Dijk still very clear in his memory almost two years on.

Gakpo, who netted twice at the weekend to help fire his team to a 4-1 victory, has moved up a level this season, in which he has been restored to his favored left wing berth. At the same time, Liverpool is six points clear at the top of the Premier League and with the best record in the Champions League with one match of the group phase left to play.

"My son, Samuël, is not even one year old, but when he is old enough to understand, I will tell him about this crazy Liverpool journey," Gakpo wrote for the Players' Tribune ahead of facing his former club, PSV, this week. "I think I’ll start back with the 7–0 win against Manchester United, in 2023.

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"I’ll tell him how we were in a bad place. And then we had this big game against United, who at the time, were doing better than us. I scored, and we went up 1-0 at half-time. In the second half? Pop, pop, pop. It was historic.

"But the most important thing is what happened later, in the dressing room. We’d gotten our fair share of s**t in the months before that game. And I’ll never forget what Virgil said after. He told us, 'Now, we have to stay calm. Don’t go thinking, 'We won 7–0, we’re the best team again.' No. We were neutral before. We stay neutral.'

"Flash forward to today, and I think we have all the pieces. Now, we just stay calm, as Virgil would say. We stay neutral. But we don’t take our foot off the gas."

Liverpool is showing no signs of letting up just yet with 16 league fixtures to play. It could yet progress in the Carabao Cup with a 1-0 deficit to overturn in the semi-final double-header with Spurs and will face Plymouth in the FA Cup fourth round.

Liverpool.com says: Gakpo has been brilliant this season and in some way it shouldn't be a surprise. He showed his talent regularly in the Netherlands with PSV and it will be nice for him to go back this week — as long as he doesn't pick up an injury before Bournemouth!