Gary Neville slams ‘naive’ Liverpool star after Chelsea loss: ‘He looks like a baby’

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Estevao’s injury-time winner secured a deserved home victory for Enzo Maresca’s side, who have now won back-to-back games against Liverpool for the first time since 2014. Ben Fleming, sports reporter ‘The boy Kerkez, to be honest with you, at this point in time, he looks like a youth-team player,’ he said on The Gary Neville Podcast. ‘I know he’s a good player, but he looks like he’s playing for the youth team, or the Under-21s.

He’s losing 50-50s with Neto! ‘He’s had Premier League experience, it’s not like he’s come in from another country. He’s got a lot of games under his belt, he’s played at these grounds before, so I expected him to slot in.

Milos Kerkez was withdrawn early at Stamford Bridge (Picture: Getty) ‘One, he’s playing alongside Virgil Van Dijk, the best centre half in the world, so if you want to play in a back four, you want to play with great defenders and he is doing. ‘And he’s got players who work hard on that side, it’s not like he’s playing on the right with Salah in front of him, which is always a bit more difficult because you always get a little bit more exposed. ‘But I have to say from the first ten minutes of that game against Bournemouth on the first game of the season, he’s struggled.’ Arne Slot’s side have lost three on the bounce (Picture: Getty) Neville, though, believes Liverpool’s problems at full-back go beyond just Kerkez, adding: ‘Frimpong looks like he should be playign as a right winger, he doesn’t perform like a right-back. ‘Conor Bradley just isn’t doing it and Andy Robertson is battling but he’s not quite where he was a few years ago. ‘Liverpool’s problems are as much to do with full-back as anywhere. They need to button that down.’ Asked about his decision to bring Kerkez off in the second half, Slot said he was looking to protect the left-back after a tiring spell that had seen him play three times in the last seven days. ‘Milos was more and more tired – he played 90 minutes in two games and now for the third game in a week, which he’s not used to when he played at Bournemouth’ Slot told Sky Sports. ‘You could feel and see it got more and more difficult to keep going and their wingers are a threat so we decided to make a change over there.’ On Bradley’s withdrawal, he added: ‘Most of the times I have to change the fullbacks after being on yellow.