Gary Neville slams Liverpool star as looking like 'a baby' and 'youth team player' after Chelsea loss | OneFootball

Neville identifies key area of weakness after below-par champions lose for the third time in a week

Liverpool defender Milos Kerkez has come in for fierce criticism following Saturday’s last-gasp 2-1 defeat by Chelsea, with Gary Neville insisting he looks like a “youth team player” and “a baby” on the pitch.

It has been an inconsistent start to his Reds career so far for the Hungarian left-back, who swapped Bournemouth for Anfield during the summer in a high-profile transfer worth £40million.

It was another below-par outing for the 21-year-old against Chelsea, where Estevao Willian’s stoppage-time winner off the bench after Cody Gakpo had earlier cancelled out Moises Caicedo’s wonder strike condemned Liverpool to their third defeat in a week across all competitions following similarly frustrating losses to Crystal Palace and Galatasaray.

"Kerkez looks like a youth team player," Manchester United legend Neville said in his role as a pundit for Sky Sports on Saturday.

"I know he's a good player but he looks like he's playing for the U21s. He looks so naive; he looks like a baby out there.

"He's losing, he's losing 50-50s against Pedro Neto. It's not as if he's coming from a different country, he's got a lot of games under his belt in the Premier League.”

Inconsistency: Neville was certainly not impressed with Milos Kerkez’s performance for Liverpool against Chelsea

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Neville went on to identify full-back as a clear problem area for Liverpool in the rather unconvincing early stages of their title defence, with Conor Bradley having been withdrawn at half-time for the second league game in a row, Andy Robertson beaten by Estevao for the winning goal and Jeremie Frimpong yet to make a significant impression following a £29.5m summer switch from Bayer Leverkusen.

“Let's be clear, Liverpool's full-backs are struggling,” Neville added. “Frimpong looks like he should be playing as a right winger - he doesn't perform like a right-back.

“Conor Bradley isn't doing it, and Andy Robertson, I think he's battling but he's not quite where he was a few years ago.

“Liverpool's problems I think at this moment in time as much to do with full-back as anywhere. They need to button that down.”

Neville’s fellow United-legend-turned-pundit Wayne Rooney also highlighted Liverpool’s problems in the full-back area on Match of the Day, claiming Chelsea had “exploited” their obvious weakness on the right side of defence.

“It’s a clear problem Liverpool have got in the right-back area,” Rooney said. “Conor Bradley has come off twice at half-time in the last two league games.

“They’ve tried Dominik Szoboszlai but it hasn’t really worked for him. Jeremie Frimpong was on the bench today but didn’t get on so they’ve tried three right-backs in seven league games.

“Chelsea have seen that and exploited it. The Liverpool back four were all over the place at times, there were warning signs early on.

“Bradley got a yellow card and I’m sure that was a big factor in him getting subbed off at half-time. It was a big problem for Liverpool today as it has been all season.”