Jamie Carragher's Harsh Verdict on Liverpool's Milos Kerkez

Jamie Carragher did not bother with subtlety. He rarely does. This time his focus was Liverpool’s new left-back, Milos Kerkez – and the verdict was brutal.

On The Overlap, Carragher branded Kerkez “the Darwin Nunez of full-backs,” a line that cut straight to the heart of the debate around the defender’s frantic, high-risk style. In his eyes, Liverpool have handed a starting shirt to a player who sprints first and thinks later.

“Their understanding of the game is really, really poor,” Carragher said, grouping Kerkez with Liverpool’s other full-back, Jeremie Frimpong. “You’re watching the game and thinking, ‘Why has he done that?’”

Kerkez has started both of Liverpool’s opening Premier League fixtures, 2-2 draws with Newcastle and Nottingham Forest that have already stirred unease on Merseyside. Two points from six, four goals conceded, and a back line that looks anything but settled under Andoni Iraola. The full-backs, in particular, are under the microscope.

Carragher’s criticism went beyond a throwaway comparison. He questioned the very foundations of the club’s planning at left-back.

“I described Kerkez last season – and it was his first season, maybe it was a bit harsh at the time – he’s the Darwin Nunez of full-backs,” Carragher continued. “It’s just like ‘head down and run’, everything Kerkez does is 100 miles an hour.”

Liverpool paid £40 million to bring Kerkez in, a fee that was supposed to buy both potential and reliability. What they have, in Carragher’s view, is a player leaning almost entirely on raw speed and aggression, without the positional intelligence required at the top level.

“They’ve brought in Kerkez for £40million. He’s had his first season, it wasn’t amazing, but right, you go: ‘OK, Iraola’s come in from Bournemouth, he knows him, he’s still our left-back. Andy Robertson moved on, we had another left-back on loan, so we’re probably not going to spend another £40million on another. He’s our left-back, let him have another year’.”

That logic, Carragher suggested, has boxed Liverpool into a corner. They have committed to Kerkez as the starter at a time when his development still looks raw and erratic, and they have done so while ignoring the wider fragility in the full-back positions.

The numbers from the summer only deepen the scrutiny. Liverpool spent heavily, but not where the alarm bells were ringing loudest. Bradley Barcola arrived for £106m, Jeremy Jacquet for £55m, with four other signings reinforcing other areas of the squad. The flanks of the defence, though, were left untouched.

Gary Neville could not make sense of it either. Watching Kerkez and Frimpong last season, he felt the warning signs were obvious.

“The two full-backs, it was quite clear at the start of last season when you watched them for five or six matches, that defensively they weren’t going to be quite at the level to do it,” Neville said. “I’m stunned. We talk about ‘will Arsenal regret not bringing in a forward’ – will Liverpool regret not bringing in a couple of full-backs?”

That is the question now hanging over Iraola’s early weeks at Anfield. The new manager has been backed financially, his attacking options significantly upgraded, but his system still leans heavily on full-backs who are being openly dissected on national platforms after just two league games.

Kerkez, only at the start of his Liverpool story, finds himself cast as a symbol of a wider gamble. Head down, running at 100 miles an hour, he has time to prove Carragher wrong. The club, though, may not have the same luxury if those defensive frailties keep dragging them back.