‘Not good enough’ – Danny Murphy slams Liverpool duo as Andoni Iraola’s ‘biggest problem’ | OneFootball

Former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy has hit out at Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong, who are “not good enough”.

The two full-backs joined Liverpool during last summer’s transfer window for around £75m combined after being recruited as long-term replacements for Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson.

These are huge boots to fill, but Kerkez and Frimpong have massively underperformed over the past year and full-back is now a weak spot in Liverpool’s side.

New head coach Andoni Iraola has already dropped Frimpong for Ronald Araujo, and he may soon search for Kerkez replacement if the left-back does not improve.

“They are not good enough…”

And Murphy has hit out at the two players, who are “not going to get better” as Liverpool’s “biggest problem”.

“The bigger problem for Liverpool because at times at Anfield, they are going to dominate the ball so much that the press isn’t going to be that important,” Murphy told talkSPORT.

“The bigger problem is that the full-backs aren’t good enough at Liverpool. They are not good enough.

“They are not going to get better, it is not in them.

“They are 100mph. They are working hard but their level of crossing and choice of final pass is really poor.

“It looks worse for the Liverpool fans when you have been so used to seeing two of the best we’ve ever seen in Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold, in terms of assists, quality and picking the final pass.

“They have brought in two full-backs, who aren’t as good. I think they are okay defensively, not brilliant, but they are okay.

“And going forward, the best teams have really good full-backs on the ball because teams clog up the middle of the pitch, so the space is wide.

“Your full-backs get so much of the ball, and Frimpong and Kerkez just don’t have that quality that you need to open up teams.”

To ease their issues at full-back, fellow pundit Gabby Agbonlahor has told Iraola to play Dominik Szoboszlai at right-back instead of Frimpong.

“If you’ve got [Ryan] Gravenberch on the bench last week against Forest – Gravenberch comes in with [Alexis] McAllister in that midfield and [Florian] Wirtz,” Agbonlahor claimed.

“And it just makes sense, because Frimpong does not have the quality and he’s never going to have the quality.

“He’s a wing-back, not a full-back.”