Gerrard tells Slot to drop Liverpool star as summer signing was a ‘bag of nerves’ vs Wolves | OneFootball

Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard has told head coach Arne Slot to drop Cody Gakpo after the shock 2-1 loss to Wolves.

Slot’s side headed into Tuesday’s game against Wolves on an unconvincing four-game winning run, but they suffered a damaging loss against the Premier League’s bottom side.

Andre’s deflected shot in stoppage time earned Wolves a narrow 2-1 after Mohamed Salah cancelled out Rodrigo Gomes’ opener, with Liverpool to slip to sixth in the Premier League if Chelsea beat Aston Villa on Wednesday night.

Once again, Liverpool were toothless in attack as Gakpo and Salah have been a shadow of their best selves this season, while youngster Rio Ngumoha has been a shining light.

Ngumoha has had several impressive cameos in recent weeks and Gerrard now thinks it is time for the starlet to start ahead of Gakpo.

“For 65 minutes Liverpool were desperate tonight, really poor, didn’t create enough, didn’t play at the right speed or the right tempo, didn’t have enough quality,” Gerrard told TNT Sports.

“He has to start Ngumoha now. He has to start him because he’s coming on and he’s doing more in a short cameo in a short space of time than Gakpo’s doing in 65, 70 minutes.

“He deserves to start now. He’s got to start the kid on Friday night [in the FA Cup].”

Michael Owen has also hit out at Gakpo, but he has also been left unconvinced by summer signing Milos Kerkez, who looked “like a bag of nrves” against Wolves.

“I’m just not convinced about one or two of the players,” Owen told Premier League Productions.

“Full-backs you’ve gone from Trent [Alexander-Arnold] and [Andy] Robertson, possibly the best combination of full-back the Premier League has seen for a long, long time, you had [Mohamed] Salah ahead of him who has just been a freak over the last few years, incredible, and of course [Luis] Diaz who played the majority of the time and was exceptional as well, loads of energy. Those four players have basically been changed now.

“I can’t warm to Kerkez, I’m afraid. He looks like a bag of nerves, he looks like he doesn’t want the ball, he looks like he’s an emotional defender, he’s playing like this [shaking] all the time, it’s like, ‘calm down, man’, you’re in possession of the ball a lot of the time, just relax, it’s like he’s in a trance constantly.

“[Cody] Gakpo is half the player he was last season. Salah is a tenth of the player he was last season. And then the right-backs trying to replace Trent, none of them are ever fit in Conor Bradley and [Jeremie] Frimpong.

“Straight away in four places Liverpool are weaker, much weaker, than last season. Is that transition or is Salah getting older, is Gakpo not quite the same this season? The full-backs are not as good as the previous full-backs so they’re definitely going to weaken the team.

“Trent decided to go, you can’t do much about that. Diaz decided to, you can’t do too much about that, a big offer came in and he wanted to go. The decision to re-sign Mo Salah on an extra two years, everyone was clamouring for that to happen, every Liverpool fan wanted that to happen, so you can’t blame the manager.”