Former Manchester City man, Micah Richards, has slammed three Liverpool players, Conor Bradley, Milos Kerkez and Alexander Isak following the Reds’ 2-1 defeat to Manchester United over the weekend.
He said the trio are ‘shadows of the players’ they were last season.
Cody Gakpo struck in the 78th minute to cancel out Bryan Mbeumo’s early opener in Sunday’s thriller at Anfield but Manchester United retook the lead and went on to claim all three points, thanks to Harry Maguire’s header in the 84th minute.
It was the third consecutive defeat for Liverpool in the Premier League and their fourth in all competitions, leaving them in fourth place in the table, four points adrift of league leaders, Arsenal.
It was the first win for Manchester United at Anfield for almost a decade and their first back-to-back victories since Ruben Amorim took over the reins from Erik ten Hag.
But Richards, speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast, criticised Liverpool full-backs Bradley and Kerkez.
“Liverpool, at the moment, it’s just not happening,” the former England defender said.
“Kerkez looks a shadow of the player last year for Bournemouth.
“I watched Conor Bradley… he’s a shadow of that player this season in the Liverpool side. When he goes forward, it’s always like in his head he’s thinking, ‘I need to release the ball to somebody’, but he can do it.”
On the multi-million signing from Newcastle United, Isak, Richards said, “If you spend over £100m on [Florian] Wirtz and Isak, they should be ready to go.”
“Isak is a shadow of the player.
“This whole debacle of what happened in the summer, it’s showing. He’s not fit.”
Liverpool will no doubt be desperate to issue an emphatic response when they take on Eintracht Frankfurt in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday.