Arne Slot gives HARSH wake-up call to Liverpool youngster | OneFootball

Liverpool were put through the wringer in their visit to Turf Moor on Sunday afternoon.

Burnley came out and tried to frustrate the Reds as much as humanly possible, managing just 19% possession, three shots, less than 100 accurate passes and two touches in our penalty box.

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To secure a 1-0 win took a lot of guts, tenacity and fortune, with substitute Hannibal Mejbri handling the ball in the area in the 94th minute to allow Mohamed Salah a penalty effort to break the deadlock.

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One player in particular lost patience with the Clarets' tactics and Arne Slot was given little choice but to substitute him in the first half - a particularly bruising punishment for anyone to receive.

Kerkez gets HARSH wake-up call

In his 38-minute cameo, Milos Kerkez delivered just 22 accurate passes, one accurate cross, one chance created, before he was hooked by his manager. It was an embarrassing display.

A yellow card was shown his way on the 22nd minute for simulation - one of the most obvious and shameless dives I've ever seen a player commit. Conning the referee into a penalty is NEVER okay.

Minutes later, he challenged a Burnley player on the break, which the referee fortunately gave Kerkez a warning for, rather than a second yellow card and subsequently a red. At that point, Slot knew that going down to 10-men was something of an inevitability unless he decided enough was enough.

In his post-match press conference, Slot said: "With Milos, I can never be 100% [that] he doesn't make the next foul... I thought the only way we could lose it today was if we went down to 10 men."

Throughout the opening four games of the season, it feels fair to suggest that Kerkez has been frenetic, delivering performances that are often statistically impressive, but fail to impress visually.

Attacking wise, he's often frozen out of the contest, focusing more on his defending, but on Sunday, he was given more of a free role and he excelled at neither end of the pitch. Between himself and his international captain in Dominik Szoboszlai, the superior full-back competition was a non-contest.

Despite having been chosen by his peers as the left-back of the season in his last Premier League for Bournemouth, we should remind ourselves that he's still only 21 years old, which is exceptionally young for a senior footballer to be given the reins in one of Europe's elite football teams.

There is room for improvement, he is far from the finished article and in time, he'll have a maturity to his game where such rash mistakes are no longer committed. Andy Robertson came on in his place and oozed control in his performance - winning duels, making dribbles and creating FIVE chances.

It's for this reason that the Scot was kept around this season. Kerkez has said in the past that he admires the veteran's game and it'd go a long way if he took a page out of Robertson's playbook.

Slot substituting Kerkez was harsh, but fair. Against tougher, or more frustrating, opponents he will need to keep his emotions in check better. But with time, it will get slowly start to get easier for him.