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For Cody Gakpo, the celebration said it all.

Liverpool may have been two goals to the good and cruising against Tottenham Hotspur by the time he towered above Cristian Romero to bullet Harvey Elliott's delivery past Guglielmo Vicario, but that didn't stop Gakpo from airing the frustrations of a difficult season at Anfield.

Even though the Reds' hopes of winning the Premier League are practically over after a ruinous April saw them fall by the wayside and behind both Manchester City and Arsenal, the Dutchman wheeled away to celebrate in front of the Kop and executed an emphatic knee-slide he had a steely look between his eyes as he persisted with a successful resurgence from a challenging start to 2024 on Merseyside.

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It is little surprise then that Gakpo was so effusive in his celebration as he fired Liverpool into a three-goal lead against Champions League-chasing Tottenham. After all, it was his finest performance for the club since he masterminded the 7-0 thrashing of Manchester United last March.

Since then, there have been ad-hoc flashes of quality from Gakpo, mainly when deputising in the League Cup and Europa League, to serve as a reminder as to why the Reds moved swiftly to strike a deal with PSV Eindhoven for the forward ahead of Premier League rivals United 18 months ago.

On Sunday afternoon, though, those flashes were harnessed together by a mature line-leading performance. In the first half, it was his cross that, after bringing the ball under his spell with a deft touch, invited Mohamed Salah to open the scoring as he headed past Vicario at