Liverpool faced an intense atmosphere on Tuesday evening in Istanbul as they travelled to play against Galatasaray.
The Reds have never won away from home to the Turkish champions, and fell behind once again in the Champions League.
In truth, Liverpool started fairly brightly, and should arguably have been ahead after Hugo Ekitike went through one-on-one with the goalkeeper.
But after Ekitike fluffed his lines, Galatasaray went straight down the other end and won one of the softest penalty awards you’re likely to see.
With Victor Osimhen making no mistake from the spot, Liverpool were up against it in the Champions League.
And as they chased a way back into the game, Premier League legend Alan Shearer spotted one player not exactly helping the Reds.
Milos Kerkez fails to impress against Galatasaray
Arne Slot made some eye-catching decisions with his starting XI in Istanbul, the most notable of which was dropping Mohamed Salah to the bench.
Another was arguably keeping faith in Milos Kerkez after another slightly errant performance at the weekend.
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Kerkez cost Liverpool late on against Crystal Palace, swivelling to put a routine clearance out for a throw-in which ultimately led to a goal.
Even with Andy Robertson waiting in the wings, though, Slot decided to go with the Hungarian once again. But as we’ve unfortunately come to see, Kerkez could not make a difference going forward in the first-half.
After the 21-year-old missed two chances to put balls into the box in good positions back-to-back, Shearer claimed that he simply had to do better.
“He’s got to do better in those positions Kerkez,” the pundit said live on Amazon Prime Sport. “There’s two opportunities to really put two good balls into the box. Both times he finds the wrong colour shirt.”
Kerkez defensive positioning a problem for Liverpool
It wasn’t only going forward which Shearer was disappointed with Kerkez against Galatasaray.
The Hungary international has been struggling to get to grips with playing next to Virgil van Dijk, causing plenty of concern during Liverpool matches.
The same happened numerous times on Tuesday again, leading to Shearer questioning Kerkez’s positioning.
“It’s way too easy to get in down Liverpool’s left hand side,” bemoaned the former Newcastle striker.
“Kerkez is really high up which is isolating Virgil van Dijk and that one ball in behind causes Liverpool all sorts of problems.”
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