Micah Richards says Liverpool trio are playing like ‘shadows of themselves’ after Man Utd defeat

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Bradley has struggled to reach the same heights he hit last season (Picture: Getty) Kerkez joined Liverpool for a fee of £40million in the summer (Picture: Getty) But Richards, speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast, shone a light on the performances of Liverpool’s full-back pairing of Bradley and Kerkez, who badly struggled on Merseyside. ‘Liverpool, at the moment, it’s just not happening,’ former Manchester City and England defender Richards said. ‘Kerkez looks a shadow of the player last year for Bournemouth. ‘I watched Conor Bradley and I watched him last season and he was filling in for Trent [Alexander-Arnold]. Every time he came into the team he was excellent.

He was superb: tackling, leading it, captain, up and down, doing skills. ‘But he’s a shadow of that player this season in the Liverpool side. When he goes forward, it’s always like in his head he’s thinking, “I need to release the ball to somebody”, but he can do it.’ To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video On Bradley, Richards continued: ‘He’s playing within himself at the moment.

Trent was a one-in-a-million player that Liverpool had. ‘But the way Liverpool play, he can be effective with the timing of his runs, the low cross across the box that he can put in and he’s good on one-vs-ones, but at this moment in time, he looks like a nervous wreck. ‘I’m a believer that he can turn it around, but when you’ve got a midfielder coming in to replace you at right-back, he needs to do more and I think he can do more and that’s why I’m saying it.’ Isak is yet to score in the Premier League for Liverpool (Picture: Getty) Richards went on to highlight another less-than-impressive performance from Liverpool’s record signing Isak, who has managed just one goal in his first seven appearances for the club. ‘If you spend over £100m on [Florian] Wirtz and Isak, they should be ready to go,’ he added. ‘We give Wirtz a little bit more time because he’s coming into a different league and I have no doubt that he’ll come good. He’s not fit. ‘Arne Slot said in the press conference before that now we’re going see the real Isak because he looks like he’s going to be fit now. ‘But the chance that he had in the game, if he’s at Newcastle then he tucks that away.’ Amorim’s side rose to ninth with the victory (Picture: Getty) Richards has ‘no problem’ with Slot deciding to bring off star man Salah considering the forward’s poor showing, stressing that ‘no player is bigger than the team’. ‘Yeah, but at the end of the day, the manager has got to do what is right for the team,’ he said. ‘No player is bigger than the team and Mo has been a team player.. ‘At the moment, he’s not the Mo that we’ve seen in previous years.