Paul Scholes has singled out one Liverpool player for praise despite the Reds suffering their fourth successive defeat against Manchester United on Sunday.
Arne Slot’s side now find themselves in fourth spot following the 2-1 loss to their bitter rivals at Anfield – four points adrift of league leaders Arsenal in the Premier League.
Alexander Isak was preferred to Hugo Ekitike up front for the huge clash but it was the latter who impressed Scholes the most when he was introduced as a second half substitute.
The champions are yet to click this season despite winning their opening seven games of the campaign (across all competitions) but there’s no need for panic according to the former United midfielder.
“And I still think at some point they are going to gel together. There’s too many good players. You think of Isak and Ekitike,” Scholes said on The Good, The Bad, & The Football Podcast (via Rousing The Kop).
“When he [Ekitike] came on, I was really impressed with him. Isak obviously missed a big chance where you thought he’s going to score, but he just can’t seem to get off and running at the minute, can he?”
Eyebrows were raised amongst some Liverpool supporters when the team news landed on Sunday.
Despite the huge money that was spent to bring Isak to the club in the summer, Ekitike had started the campaign in superb fashion with six goal contributions in 10 games prior to Sunday and many believed he should’ve got the nod ahead of the Swede.
His introduction from the bench got the Anfield crowd going as it took him just a couple of minutes to dance past a couple of United players before firing an effort into the Kop.
He’s the only summer signing to properly show what he’s capable of during the opening months of the campaign.
Is there cause for panic?
Slot and Co. are still attempting to figure out their best XI while tackling a tricky and somewhat hectic fixture schedule.
Milos Kerkez and Isak were the only summer signings to make the starting XI on Sunday with Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong and Ekitike all settling for a spot on the bench.
All three subs had a positive impact when they were introduced but the team as a whole did not do enough to get a positive result.
The run of defeats needs to end tomorrow when we travel to Frankfurt for our third game of the Champions League campaign.
When a squad completes somewhat of an overhaul like ours did in the summer it can take time to adapt so let’s continue to get behind the team and have confidence the positive results are just around the corner.