‘He has to be taken out’ – Gary Neville says Arne Slot must drop Liverpool signing

Gary Neville says Milos Kerkez is ‘becoming a worry’ for Liverpool and should be taken out of the firing line for the side’s next Premier League clash with Aston Villa.

Kerkez arrived at Anfield with weighty expectations on his shoulders following a £40million move from Bournemouth in the summer transfer window.

But the 21-year-old Hungary left-back has looked defensively suspect in his first few months on Merseyside and a shadow of the player Bournemouth fans witnessed for much of last season.

Kerkez once again appeared vulnerable at the back this weekend as Liverpool lost yet more ground on top-of-the-table Arsenal after suffering a fourth straight loss at the hands of Brentford.

And while it was Kerkez’s close-range strike that gave Liverpool hope of a fightback, a pair second-half goals from Kevin Schade and Igor Thiago were enough to hand Brentford a 3-2 victory over the champions.

Arne Slot now has some tough selection decisions to make with games coming thick and fast for the Reds, starting against Crystal Palace in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.

‘I actually think that there were quite a few of those games they’ve lost that they could have won, flipping it the other way if they had taken their chances,’ Sky Sports pundit Neville, formerly of Manchester United, said of Liverpool’s latest setback.

‘Early on in the season, I felt their full-backs weren’t right, maybe Ibrahima Konate times wasn’t right and Virgil van Dijk was holding them together and Alisson was in goal.

‘You’ve got two world-class performers there in Van Dijk and Alisson, but the virus is catching. It’s not just going now into the left-back.

‘The left-back is becoming a worry. He [Kerkez] scored last night but watching him, he has to be taken out I think.

‘I’m worried about the right-back. [Jeremie] Frimpong isn’t a right-back. Conor Bradley has been given his head and I’m supportive of that because I think there’s a lot of talent there, but it’s difficult when your team are conceding goals and the pressure is on.’

Neville believes Liverpool’s fortunes are unlikely to change if Slot keeps faith with the same players and refuses to ‘interfere’ with his starting XI.

‘If he carries on playing Kerkez at left-back and he carries on playing Bradley at right-back, and they carry on being as exposed as they are in midfield, you’ll keep getting the same results,’ the ex-United and England defender added.

‘Every single game you’ll be flipping a coin and thinking, “Are we gonna win or are we gonna lose?”, and that can’t be what Liverpool are about with the way they’ve performed in these last 12 months.

‘I like the manager a lot, I like his way of working, I like his manner in press conferences, it doesn’t look like there’s any panic there from him.

‘But deep down, it looks like he’s going to have to interfere with this. He cannot keep allowing the same things to happen each week.’

According to Neville, Slot needs to go back to basics and somehow find a ‘strong foundation’ to build from at the back.

‘Slot’s Liverpool do remind me of our team at Manchester United,’ he explained.

‘We went through these mad periods where we’d concede goals. It always looked like we would score but we were all over the place. That wasn’t all the time but there were moments I remember these things happening.

‘What he [Sir Alex Ferguson] would do is he might put John O’Shea at left-back, me at right-back or Wes Brown at right-back, almost go to four centre-backs, and then really narrow the midfield and make them more solid.

‘One thing you can guarantee with Mohamed Salah, Hugo Ekitike, Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak, Cody Gakpo, and the others they’ve got, is that they’ll score goals.

‘So the seven plus the goalkeeper are responsible for making sure they’re solid and they’re not open or exposed all the time. It sounds quite defensive and it sounds like going back to base camp and starting from scratch, but sometimes you have to do that.

‘When everything’s crazy, chaotic and mad, which it is for Liverpool at the moment, you just have to find a strong foundation and that means putting players in there that can keep a narrow back four, prevent spaces, win you duels, make sure you don’t give away easy goals, play it forward quicker than you have been and stop popping it through midfield.

‘Just be a little bit more direct, knowing that front three will win you games. That happened at United a lot and I just wonder whether it’s a time now for Arne Slot to simplify and pull it back.’

Neville – an eight-time Premier League winner with United -feels the title is now ‘Arsenal’s to win’, with Mikel Arteta’s men four points clear at the summit.

‘They don’t need to do anything spectacular here. Just keep doing your jobs, keeping doing what you’re doing, and you will win this league,’ he went on.

‘It’s yours to win. I’m not saying, “It’s yours to lose”, that would be applying pressure… it’s yours to win. This is your title, Arsenal.

‘I’ve never really felt that sure before and it’s so early in the season.

‘It’s madness for someone with the experience I’ve got of winning titles to say that, but it really is [Arsenal’s to win] and that’s not being overconfident for them or placing undue pressure on them.

‘They must feel it themselves, the Arsenal fans must feel it and they must know that this is the moment that Arsenal can get back on top.’

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