Former Liverpool icon Michael Owen has admitted he “just can’t warm to” Milos Kerkez, describing him as a “bag of nerves” for the Reds this season.
It was another bad night for Arne Slot on Tuesday, with bottom-of-the-table Wolves winning 2-1 against the Premier League champions at Molineux.
Liverpool were lifeless in the first half, and while things improved after the break, they still went behind in weak fashion and then lost after equalising.
So many players have struggled for the Reds this season, but speaking to Premier League Productions [via Football365], Owen didn’t hold back on left-back Kerkez and others:
“Full-backs you’ve gone from Trent [Alexander-Arnold] and [Andy] Robertson, possibly the best combination of full-back the Premier League has seen for a long, long time, you had [Mohamed] Salah ahead of him who has just been a freak over the last few years, incredible, and of course [Luis] Diaz who played the majority of the time and was exceptional as well, loads of energy.
“Those four players have basically been changed now. I can’t warm to Kerkez, I’m afraid. He looks like a bag of nerves, he looks like he doesn’t want the ball, he looks like he’s an emotional defender, he’s playing like this [shaking] all the time, it’s like, ‘calm down, man’, you’re in possession of the ball a lot of the time, just relax, it’s like he’s in a trance constantly.
“[Cody] Gakpo is half the player he was last season. Salah is a tenth of the player he was last season. And then the right-backs trying to replace Trent, none of them are ever fit in Conor Bradley and [Jeremie] Frimpong.”
Is Michael Owen being too harsh on Milos Kerkez?
Kerkez certainly hasn’t set the world alight in his first season at Liverpool, but in fairness to him, he has been much improved over the past month or so.
The Hungarian has been a less erratic figure than he was earlier in the campaign, and there are others who should be singled out more for criticism.
That’s not to say that Kerkez can’t improve a lot, but anyone calling for Andy Robertson to come in for him is wide of the mark, with the Scotland captain no longer possessing the legs to be a key starter for Liverpool.
Kerkez is still only 22 and is getting used to life at one of the biggest clubs in the world – Robertson was 23 when he joined from Hull City in 2017 – and he can be the starting left-back for years to come, as long as he finds new gears.
