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Hugo Ekitike made a brilliant first impression, at times linking up beautifully with Florian Wirtz.

There was also a debut goal for Jeremie Frimpong, as the new players in the Liverpool squad hit the ground running.

But while Ekitike and Frimpong were scoring and Wirtz was claiming an assist, Milos Kerkez was having a rather more difficult official debut against Crystal Palace.

According to former Liverpool full-back Steve Nicol, however, Kerkez was not to blame for his tricky day at the office.

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It certainly was not all bad for Kerkez at Wembley, and it is clear that he will take some time to adapt to being a Liverpool full-back.

However, Jamie Carragher pointed out a problem with Kerkez at half-time, that he was following his man too often inside, leaving big gaps down the Liverpool left.

It was a constant issue.

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Speaking on ESPN after the game, Nicol claimed that Reds captain Virgil van Dijk should take a portion of the blame for this, though, with the Dutchman having a real off day against Palace.

“I think part of the problem today was because Van Dijk’s struggling a little bit, then he’s putting more time into what he’s doing as opposed to what he probably should be doing more of early doors, which is getting Kerkez in either tighter or wider depending on the situation,” said the Liverpool legend.

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“If there’s no communication between Kerkez and Van Dijk, then it’s really tough to blame Kerkez, because he’s not used to being in a certain place with that back four.

“With the second goal, when you’re playing the way he was playing you don’t see things clearly, and when you don’t see things clearly it then makes it hard to help somebody else at the same time.

“It’s going to take time for Kerkez to figure out how wide or how tight he should be and the only way to do that is through games or on the training field.”

It was telling that Slot chose to replace Kerkez for the final portion of Sunday’s match.

The Liverpool head coach will perhaps be wondering whether his decision to go with the 21-year-old over Andy Robertson was the right one.

Nevertheless, as Nicol says, he is only going to get used to playing next to Van Dijk through time on the pitch.

Playing against his former side may just be that piece of familiarity Kerkez is looking for.

Slot certainly has a decision to make over who starts at left-back on Friday.

In our opinion, the right thing to do would be to take Kerkez out of the firing line and restore Robertson.