Why Liverpool could be about to make DECISIVE Andy Robertson decision

With all the noise around Liverpool’s emerging stars under new head coach Arne Slot, it almost seems like Andy Robertson has been forgotten about this season.

Ryan Gravenberch is the flavour of the month and attention remains on Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk.

But Liverpool sit top of the league and undefeated in the Champions League, and Robertson has played the vast majority of those games.

He’s still Liverpool’s starting left-back. He’s still one of the best left-backs in the world. Yet Robbo feels like the odd man out in the side right now.

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And between outspoken comments, Kostas Tsimikas seeing more of the pitch and being hooked early because of disciplinary issues - say it quietly, but is the writing on the wall for him?

How Andy Robertson has declined recently

The Scottish captain is yet to record a goal or assist in all competitions this season.

Assists are a particular outlier here, but his returns have been declining season-on-season for some time: 11 in the Premier League in 2018-19, then 12, 7, 10, 8 and just 2 last season.

In fairness, Robertson has already recorded 1.5 expected assists (xA) this season, suggesting that the finishing from his passes has been suboptimal. 0.8 of this came against Wolves, largely from a chance Dominik Szoboszlai passed to Wolves keeper Sam Johnstone from five yards out after Robbo had put it on a plate for him.

Still, outside of this, his output has been basically nonexistent.

He was booked 10 minutes into the second half of the Champions League game against Bologna midweek and was hooked for Kostas Tsimikas 15 minutes later. 

New head coach Arne Slot has seen fit to use Tsimikas in six games this season, most notably giving him the full 90 minutes when Liverpool travelled to the San Siro a few weeks ago.

Luckily for Robertson, Tsimikas’ performances haven’t exactly been stellar either, with his mistake leading to Milan’s opener in that game and blazing multiple shots over the bar afterwards. 

As a result, rumours are circulating that Liverpool are keeping a keen eye on Bournemouth’s left-back Milos Kerkez.

Kerkez has multiple links to the club - new sporting director Richard Hughes having signed him in that role at Bournemouth and being national teammates and good friends with Dominik Szoboszlai.

Mainly, however, it indicates that Liverpool are slowly becoming wary that they may have to address the position sooner rather than later.

Robertson also cut a dissatisfied figure when talking about the amount of games that football players are forced to play at the minute. The left-back berated ‘people sitting in offices’ for making these decisions instead of the players themselves being asked.

Whilst it is a salient point that we do not disagree with, it speaks to Robertson’s wider frustration and results in him cutting an even more dissatisfied figure.

Is it time to go?

Robbo will be 31 in March. With the exception of Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz, who are 27, none of Liverpool’s starters who are signed beyond this season are over the age of 25.

Head coach Arne Slot was tasked with developing existing players, such as the 25-year old Ibrahima Konaté and the 22-year old Ryan Gravenberch. He has done this to tremendous effect so far and will undoubtedly only be asked to do more. 

As a result, the 20-year old Milos Kerkez presents a problem for Robertson. The two have the same amount of shot creating actions per-90 this season (playing basically the same amount of minutes too), whilst Kerkez leads on tackle & interception rate at 2.91 per-90 to Robertson’s 1.25.

Whilst this may indicate a higher amount of tackles necessary, due to teams attacking Liverpool less, the two both have a 50% tackle success rate, indicating a similar level of ability in this area at current. 

And this is a very young player in a mid-table Premier League team. If Liverpool set their sights higher, they could hope to achieve a coup for some of the best left-backs in the world.

PSG’s Nuno Mendes or Milan’s Theo Hernandez are both players who could bend to the idea of becoming Liverpool’s starting left-back.

Still, it’s important to remember what we’re talking about with Robertson.

He has been one of the best players on one of the best teams in the world for the last eight years. He was crucial to Premier League success and three Champions League finals.

He is tied with Trent for the most amount of assists in Premier League history.

So whilst he may be closing in on the end of his time on Merseyside, he’s earned the chance to go out on his own terms.