Alan Shearer has suggested Liverpool boss Arne Slot doesn’t trust Jeremie Frimpong to start at right-back.
Liverpool had been enjoying a perfect start to the season but a reliance on late winners left the feeling all was not right with a side who so regularly dominated the opposition last season.
The Premier League champions fell to their first defeat of the season at Crystal Palace on Saturday, suffering a second defeat on the bounce away to Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Liverpool lost Trent Alexander-Arnold to Real Madrid at the end of last season but swooped to quickly bring in a replacement with Frimpong joining from Bayer Leverkusen for £30million.
Slot attempted to switch his side up in Turkey with Frimpong moved into an advanced attacking role on the right ahead of Mohamed Salah with Dominik Szoboszlai again deployed at right-back.
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The experiment failed with Frimpong largely anonymous until he was replaced by Conor Bradley – a natural right-back again moved into an unfamiliar position.
While Slot explained Frimpong’s performances in an attacking role for his previous club merited Tuesday’s decision, Shearer was not convinced.
The Premier League legend told Amazon Sport: ‘They spent heavily on Frimpong. It would be a little concern that [Slot] seems to not rely on him as yet. He’s playing him in a different position.
‘He’s playing a midfielder in the right-back position, and they’ve probably been the best right-back up until now.
He certainly was in the performance against Newcastle anyway; he was the man of the match, Szoboszlai.
‘They paid a lot of money for a right-back in Frimpong. You’ve got a good prospect in Bradley, yet you’re playing a midfielder at right-back. That tells me he’s not comfortable.’
Slot appeared to question Frimpong’s decision-making following the weekend defeat to Crystal Palace after Eddie Nketiah was left free to score a dramatic equaliser.
Assessing how Palace managed to breach the Liverpool defence late on, Slot explained how ‘one of our players’ left his defensive post to be in position for a counter attack – a fruitless task with the game almost up.
While he did not name the player, Slot’s comments appeared to be aimed at Frimpong who stepped up away from Nketiah.
‘We can only blame ourselves. Defending the way we did,’ Slot said.
‘One of our players decided to run out because he wanted to play a counter-attack, which was of no use because time was up.
‘It was only about defending. Maybe we were too offensively minded. One player was too offensively minded in that moment, which led to them scoring the winner and us losing the game.’