Gary Neville has called for Arne Slot to drop one Liverpool star amid a string of worrying results from the Premier League champions, with their latest domestic outing seeing the Reds slump to a 3-2 defeat at Brentford on Saturday evening.
Liverpool have failed to win a Premier League match since the end of September, losing their last four division games against Crystal Palace, Chelsea, and Manchester United.
Slot has been open about his side’s decline and deemed the Brentford defeat the worst performance he had overseen in his season-and-a-half-long tenure at Anfield.
With a question mark looming over how quickly last season’s winners can reverse their fortunes before the end of the year, Neville suggested that action could be taken by leaving one summer recruit off the team-sheet.
Milos Kerkez has started the side’s last four Premier League sides and despite scoring on Saturday night, continued to trouble Neville.
‘I think there’s quite a few of those games where I feel like they could have won, flipping it the other way if they had taken the chances,’ Neville said of Liverpool’s recent performances on Sky Sports’ The Gary Neville Podcast.
Liverpool slumped to their fourth consecutive Premier League defeat against Brentford
Gary Neville suggested that a performance virus was making its way through the squad
‘Earlier on in the season I felt as though their full backs weren’t right, and maybe Konate at times wasn’t right, but Van Dijk was holding them together and Alisson was in goal and you’ve got two world-class performers there.
‘But the virus is catching. It’s not just going into the left back, who I think now is becoming a worry – the left back, Kerkez scored but watching him, he has to be taken out I think.
‘I’m (also) worried about the right back. (Jeremie) Frimpong’s not a right back. Conor Bradley’s being given his head and I’m supportive of that because I think there’s a lot of talent there, but it’s difficult when your team is conceding goals and the pressure’s on.’
Neville added that he believes Liverpool now remind him ‘a little bit’ of Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson during his playing career, with regards to the number of goals they concede.
‘We went through mad periods where we would concede goals, always looked like we were going to score but we were all over the place,’ he continued. ‘Not all the time but there were moments. I remember these things happening.
‘He (Ferguson) would put John O’Shea at left back and me at right back or Wes Brown at right back and almost go to four centre halves and really narrow the midfield and make them a lot more solid – let’s just build a foundation off the back.’
Liverpool’s squad is not without its stand-outs and Neville stressed that the likes of Mohamed Salah, Hugo Ekitike, Florian Wirtz, Cody Gakpo, and Frederico Chiesa will always be able to score goals, adding: ‘So us seven plus the goalkeeper are responsible for making sure we don’t concede goals.
‘It sounds quite defensive, and like going back to base camp, but sometimes you have to do that when everything’s crazy, chaotic and mad, which it is for Liverpool you just have to find that foundation which ultimately can keep a narrow back four, prevent spaces, win your duels and set pieces, don’t given easy goals away, play it forward quicker and be a little bit more direct knowing that front three will win you games.’
Milos Kerkez (right) again looked shaky in the Liverpool defence with concern also spreading to the other wing
Although Liverpool have a squad stuffed with world-class talents, its foundations must be strengthened
Neville wondered whether Arne Slot might take the decision to simplify his tactical methods
‘I wonder whether it’s a time now for Arne Slot to simplify. If he carries on playing Kerkez and Bradley and they carry on being as exposed as they are in midfield, you’ll keep getting the same results or flipping a game on are we going to win or are we going to lose.’
Neville noted that although Slot did not look like panicking at present, ‘deep down he is going to know he has to interfere with this.’
‘He cannot allow this each week to happen,’ Neville confirmed. ‘It’s a pattern of what they have become and he’s going to have to do something different.’
Liverpool now sit seventh in the standings, with title rivals Arsenal topping the table four points clear of second-placed Bournemouth.
The Reds will have precious little respite from top-flight action in midweek, as they begin their Carabao Cup campaign against Premier League rivals Palace at Anfield on Wednesday.
