Micah Richards says Liverpool trio are playing like ‘shadows of themselves’ after Man Utd defeat

Micah Richards has criticised Conor Bradley, Milos Kerkez and Alexander Isak following Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester United, saying the trio are ‘shadows of the players’ they were last season.

The reigning Premier League champions appeared to have rescued a point after Cody Gakpo struck in the 78th minute to cancel out Bryan Mbeumo’s early opener in Sunday’s thriller at Anfield.

But United refused to lie down and were rewarded for their spirited efforts as Harry Maguire rose the highest and thudded an emphatic 84th-minute header beyond Giorgi Mamardashvili to send the away end into raptures.

Liverpool’s latest setback – their fourth successive loss in all competitions – leaves the club down in fourth place in the table, four points adrift of league leaders Arsenal.

Meanwhile, United, whose previous win at Anfield came back in 2016, rose to ninth, with Ruben Amorim registering back-to-back victories for the first time since taking over the reins from Erik ten Hag.

Mohamed Salah’s largely anonymous display – which led to his substitution in the closing stages – was one of a number of concerning individual showings on a tough afternoon for Liverpool.

The Egyptian is now without a goal in his last five appearances for the Reds and will no doubt be desperate to issue an emphatic response when Slot’s men take on Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday.

But Richards, speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast, shone a light on the performances of Liverpool’s full-back pairing of Bradley and Kerkez, who badly struggled on Merseyside.

‘Liverpool, at the moment, it’s just not happening,’ former Manchester City and England defender Richards said.

‘Kerkez looks a shadow of the player last year for Bournemouth.

‘I watched Conor Bradley and I watched him last season and he was filling in for Trent [Alexander-Arnold]. Every time he came into the team he was excellent.

‘He was energetic, he could tackle, one-vs-one, the Liverpool fans were really buying into what he was doing.

‘I watched him for Northern Ireland against Slovakia and, again, he was outstanding. He was superb: tackling, leading it, captain, up and down, doing skills.

‘But 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 Bradley, Richards continued: ‘He’s playing within himself at the moment. I’ve been there a couple of times in my career where you’ve got better players in the team and you think you’re in a team for a certain role.’

‘What he needs to get out of his head, he’s not there to replace Trent because he can’t. Trent was a one-in-a-million player that Liverpool had.

‘But the way Liverpool play, he can be effective with the timing of his runs, the low cross across the box that he can put in and he’s good on one-vs-ones, but at this moment in time, he looks like a nervous wreck.

‘I’m a believer that he can turn it around, but when you’ve got a midfielder coming in to replace you at right-back, he needs to do more and I think he can do more and that’s why I’m saying it.’

Richards went on to highlight another less-than-impressive performance from Liverpool’s record signing Isak, who has managed just one goal in his first seven appearances for the club.

‘If you spend over £100m on [Florian] Wirtz and Isak, they should be ready to go,’ he added.

‘We give Wirtz a little bit more time because he’s coming into a different league and I have no doubt that he’ll come good.

‘I thought Wirtz actually played well when he came on in the game, but Isak is a shadow of the player.

‘This whole debacle of what happened in the summer, it’s showing. He’s not fit.

‘Arne Slot said in the press conference before that now we’re going see the real Isak because he looks like he’s going to be fit now.

‘But the chance that he had in the game, if he’s at Newcastle then he tucks that away.’

Richards has ‘no problem’ with Slot deciding to bring off star man Salah considering the forward’s poor showing, stressing that ‘no player is bigger than the team’.

‘Yeah, but at the end of the day, the manager has got to do what is right for the team,’ he said.

‘No player is bigger than the team and Mo has been a team player..

‘At the moment, he’s not the Mo that we’ve seen in previous years. Normally, he would have popped up with a goal.

‘That chance that he hit with the outside of his foot, he normally just bends that into the far corner.

‘I have no problem with the manager taking off Mo.’

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