Michael Owen believes Milos Kerkez ‘looks a bag of nerves’ and should be dropped after Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Wolves.
Arne Slot’s side went behind at Molineux as Rodrigo Gomes put Wolves in front before Mohamed Salah scored with seven minutes remaining to pull Liverpool level.
However, Wolves sealed only their third Premier League win of the season with Andre’s deflected goal in injury time.
The result leaves Liverpool fifth in the Premier League and they will be overtaken by Chelsea if they beat Aston Villa on Wednesday.
Owen, meanwhile, remains unsure of Kerkez’s future at Liverpool with the left-back struggling to make an impact following his £40 million move from Bournemouth last summer.
‘I’m just not convinced about one or two of the players,’ Owen told Premier League Productions.
‘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.
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‘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.
‘Straight away in four places Liverpool are weaker, much weaker, than last season. Is that transition or is Salah getting older, is Gakpo not quite the same this season? The full-backs are not as good as the previous full-backs so they’re definitely going to weaken the team.
‘Trent decided to go, you can’t do much about that. Diaz decided to, you can’t do too much about that, a big offer came in and he wanted to go. The decision to re-sign Mo Salah on an extra two years, everyone was clamouring for that to happen, every Liverpool fan wanted that to happen, so you can’t blame the manager.
‘Left-back, I think they pensioned off Andy Robertson a little bit too soon, I think he should still be playing now.
‘Now I’m not saying don’t bring a left-back in, [Kostas] Tsimikas probably not quite up to it, so yes, bring in somebody for the future, I didn’t disagree with it, and I liked Kerkez at Bournemouth but Liverpool is a different kettle of fish to Bournemouth, you’ve got to be able to manage pressure, all the eyes are on you, and it just looks like the club is a bit too big for him at the moment, he might settle down, he might get better, but at the moment I’m sticking Andy Robertson straight back in.’
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