‘All over the place’ – Alan Shearer hammers ‘nonexistent’ Liverpool duo in defeat to Bournemouth

Alan Shearer was critical of Liverpool full-backs Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez in the 3-2 defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday, particularly in relation to the first goal of the night.

The Cherries broke the deadlock in the 26th minute when Virgil van Dijk failed to clear a long ball into the Reds’ penalty area, with Alex Scott pouncing on that hesitation to tee up Evanilson to score.

There was a double dose of pain for the champions in that moment as Alisson Becker clattered into Joe Gomez as they tried in vain to prevent the Brazilian from scoring, with the stricken defender duly having to be substituted.

Shearer: Frimpong and Kerkez were ‘all over the place’ on Saturday

Shearer and Gary Lineker were dissecting the weekend’s Premier League action in the latest episode of The Rest Is Football, and the former criticised the two Liverpool full-backs over their role in that goal and their overall performances.

The ex-Newcastle striker said: “Gomez should’ve been further over, closer to Evanilson, and the two full-backs in Kerkez and Frimpong – they were just nonexistent.

“They were actually on the edge of the box still when the ball went in the back of the net, despite the ball going over the top. It was staggering how much was wrong with that first goal.”

Shearer added: “Their two full-backs, Frimpong and Kerkez, at times I think they’ve been all over the place, and we highlighted that in the first goal.”

Not the best of nights for Frimpong or Kerkez

To give the full-back duo their due credit, they’ve both been quite impressive for Liverpool in recent weeks, with the Dutchman offering plenty of verve in an attacking sense and the Hungarian growing into his role as our starting left-back.

However, much like the team in general, they were both well below their best on Saturday, and Shearer’s criticism over their positioning at the moment that Evanilson scored is justified.

The ex-Bournemouth defender was also caught out for the second goal as he lost Alex Jimenez, and while Arne Slot declared that his half-time withdrawal was pre-planned due to minute management, it’s hard to shake the sense that the 22-year-old was taken off for performance-related reasons.

The Liverpool Echo‘s Ian Doyle wrote after the game that Kerkez was ‘probably too emotionally invested on his first return’ to his former stomping ground since his transfer last summer, and that Frimpong had some some ‘wobbly moments in defence’, and both of those are fair assessments.

It wasn’t all bad from the full-back duo on Saturday – the table below (with data from Sofascore) shows that they were generally on top of their duels and tried to make things happen going forward – but they could certainly have done better for some of the Cherries’ goals.

Hopefully they’ll manage to put that off-day behind them immediately and prove a point to Shearer in upcoming games, starting with the midweek Champions League clash against Qarabag.

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