Liverpool's Left-Back Dilemma: A Season in Limbo

Liverpool’s summer of change was supposed to reset the club. It barely scratched the surface.

Four new faces arrived, including Ronald Araujo and Bradley Barcola, yet the squad still carries the scars of last season’s collapse under Arne Slot. The 2-1 win over Atletico Madrid on Wednesday offered a reminder: the result was encouraging, the performance less so. The problems haven’t vanished. Some of them are standing at left-back.

Slot’s shadow and a squad still in limbo

Last year Liverpool hurled more than £450 million at the transfer market. Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz headlined the spree, big names meant to drag the club forward. Instead, the team lurched backwards.

They looked disjointed, short of ideas and, more damningly, short of hunger. Fifth place in the Premier League told its own story. Slot paid with his job, but his legacy remains stitched into this squad.

Now Andoni Iraola has been tasked with stitching it back together. His appointment should change the direction of travel, yet Wednesday’s win at Anfield underlined how incomplete this rebuild still is. One position, in particular, keeps flashing red.

Kerkez and the Robertson problem

Milos Kerkez arrived last summer as the heir to Andy Robertson, the long-term solution at left-back. Slot wanted him, trusted his potential, and saw him as the future in that role.

Reality bit quickly.

Even as Robertson aged and battled his own issues, he still outperformed his supposed successor. The Scotsman kept his place more often than not, his reliability and intensity too valuable to discard. Some supporters even started to wonder if Liverpool might push for a new deal for Robertson, such was his importance.

That extension never came. Instead, Kostas Tsimikas returned to Anfield to act as back-up, leaving Kerkez as the man expected to grow into the starting role.

On current evidence, that expectation looks wildly optimistic.

Against Atletico, the 22-year-old looked exactly what he is: a talented but raw defender still learning the position at the highest level. His display was erratic, and at a club like Liverpool, that’s a problem. His lapse against Marcos Llorente, allowing the midfielder to escape and punish the Reds, summed up the concern. One moment of poor concentration, one goal conceded.

At wing-back, Kerkez offers plenty. He’s energetic, aggressive going forward, and can be a real outlet. In a back four, though, his defensive inexperience is exposed, and Liverpool can’t afford that kind of learning curve every week.

January already looming large

Liverpool’s squad still has too many soft spots for a club with title ambitions. There are holes across the XI, and if the club sit out the January window, they risk watching their rivals surge away again.

Transfer talk has already started to swirl. Ben Jacobs has even suggested that Liverpool are looking ahead to replacing Alexis Mac Allister in 2027, a sign of long-term planning at the heart of the pitch.

The short term feels far more urgent on the flanks.

Kerkez’s performance against Atletico only sharpened the focus on left-back. If nights like that become a pattern, patience in the stands will run thin. Supporters will not tolerate a season defined by defensive naivety on one side of the back line.

By the time January arrives, it’s easy to imagine the mood turning. Every misjudged run, every positional error, every one-on-one lost will add to the sense that Liverpool need a steadier hand in that role.

Iraola wants to play with a back four all season. That demands a full-back who reads danger, who positions himself well, who defends first and attacks second when required. Right now, Kerkez looks more like a wing-back in a system that no longer exists for him.

Liverpool don’t just need depth at left-back. They need experience. They need someone who can walk into that back four and calm it down.

The question is simple: will the club act in time, or let another season drift while a key position waits for its grown-up?