Milos Kerkez: Liverpool's New Left-Back Steps into the Spotlight

Milos Kerkez laughs before he even sits down. “No! This is wrong, everyone gets this wrong!”

All summer, friends, team‑mates and strangers have been congratulating Liverpool’s left-back on his “wedding”. On the flight, at the training ground, in the hotel lobby. Even now, on a rooftop terrace at Liverpool’s team base in Chicago, the pleasantries start the same way.

He cuts them off every time.

“It was my oldest brother,” he says, still half‑amused, half‑exasperated. “In Serbia it is normal for the younger brothers to take the bride to the church. That’s what I did and now everyone thinks I got married. It was Rade, not me.

“There are three of us – Rade is the oldest, I’m the youngest and Marko is the middle one. I keep having to explain to people that I never got married. I was going around the club when we started back and people were congratulating me. I’m like: ‘No, I’m not ready for this yet!’”

The mix-up has followed him from Vrbas to Merseyside to the United States. It has, at least, broken the ice. Marriage is not on his agenda. Something else is: stepping out from Andy Robertson’s shadow and stepping up as Liverpool’s new left-back under a familiar face.

A summer of shocks and reunions

For Kerkez, 22, the off‑season has felt like three different lives spliced together. Time at home in Serbia. Holidays in Montenegro and Spain. Then a frantic knock on his bedroom door.

His brother again. Another surprise.

Arne Slot had been sacked.

“I was back in Serbia, I was sleeping and my brother woke me up. He knocks on my door and it was a big surprise. Nobody knew. I couldn’t believe it, I was like: ‘Wow.’”

Twelve months after delivering the Premier League title, the Dutchman was gone. Kerkez still messages him. There is no bitterness in his voice when he talks about last season or Slot’s methods, only respect. But the next twist in his summer came quickly: Andoni Iraola, the coach who had turned him into a £40m full-back at Bournemouth, was walking into Anfield.

“I was delighted, honestly,” Kerkez says. “He helped me and improved me a lot in the two years I spent with him. I was really happy, obviously for myself but also for the team. Everyone knows what type of football he plays so I think he is the perfect fit for us.”

Liverpool’s players are discovering that in the heat of an American pre-season. Double sessions at Chicago Fire’s performance centre. A win over Sunderland in Nashville. Endless running. Games in tight spaces with three or four teams where Iraola calls the punishment for losing “consequences”.

“When we play games with three or four teams he calls it ‘consequences’ and the losing team and the team that finishes second has to run,” Kerkez explains. “How much you have to run depends on what he decides in that moment, but there is always running for the team that loses.

“It’s the intensity. He’s not scared to play one-on-one all over the pitch, to press high and to be on the front foot always. If you see footage of how we all are after training, all lying down, then you can see what he is preparing us for. You definitely need legs and good condition for what he wants us to do, but we will be all right.”

He smiles. This is his comfort zone.

From Bournemouth to the big stage

Kerkez knows Iraola’s football as well as anyone in this Liverpool squad. At Bournemouth, under the Basque coach, his pace and aggression up and down the flank earned him a place in the PFA team of the year in 2024‑25. That was the version of Kerkez Liverpool thought they were buying.

Last season at Anfield, that player only appeared in flashes. Slot’s insistence on building from the back and asking full‑backs to step inside often left him looking inhibited, stuck between instinct and instruction.

There is no such conflict with Iraola.

“The gaffer likes to play more with the full-backs down the line, underlapping, overlapping,” Kerkez says. “It worked well for me at Bournemouth, so I think it will also work well for me here.

“He always told me that defending is really important, for him that is first of all, and because you are a full-back you need to defend really hard. Everything you can do in front of you is like a bonus. So I was always focused first on defending and then running forward to help the wingers.

“He showed me that when you do your job then you are free to do what you want, so I felt really free with him. He lets you be more free to do your stuff.”

Iraola, he says, is “intense” and “likes details”. He keeps his distance, deliberately, to show everyone is treated the same. No favourites. No cliques. Just hard work and high standards.

That suits Kerkez, who has never been one for comfort zones.

Built different

“Honestly, I don’t care about pressure,” he says, asked about the scrutiny that followed Liverpool’s expensive but inconsistent recruitment drive last summer. He was one of the few new arrivals to emerge with any credit, yet still found himself folded into a wider narrative of underachievement.

“I don’t like ‘pressure’ and that stuff. I grew up a bit different in Serbia. We grew up different. You could say maybe we are built a bit different. For example, I started to drive a truck when I was 10 years old.”

He sees the raised eyebrow and laughs again.

“It was with my dad. I climbed in and then I took the wheel. He was doing the pedals, I was only quite small so I couldn’t reach them.”

His father, Sebastijan, still drives him now – from their home to Liverpool’s training ground at the Axa. Both parents, Sebastijan and Tijana, moved to England to help their youngest son settle into life as a Premier League player.

“They are very important,” Kerkez says. “My brothers have their own lives now but my parents are with me and I am much happier they are with me.

“My dad is here to smack me sometimes on the top of the head and to remind me. Sometimes you play a few good games and maybe you start to get a bit carried away. But my dad is here to smack me. I come straight back down and I switch straight back on.”

That grounding has helped him ride out a turbulent first year at Anfield, when Liverpool seemed to solve one problem only for another to appear. “Tough for everyone,” is how he describes it. But he never felt overwhelmed by the expectations.

He will need that same steel again now. The man he was bought to replace has gone. The comparison will never fully disappear.

Life after Robertson

Andy Robertson’s departure in May, the Scotland captain leaving for Tottenham after a decorated spell at Liverpool, closed a monumental chapter at left-back. Kerkez was close enough to see the emotion of the final days, but he chose not to intrude.

“I didn’t want to get a lot on to him,” he says. “He was a bit emotional as everything was coming to an end. I didn’t want to get on to him too much, but throughout the year he helped me.

“We had a few conversations about crosses and about the big lungs we need to have so we can run until tomorrow. He did a lot of seasons, I should also have the same. We had conversations like that. Also, where to put the last ball, to focus, to put your head up and sometimes put better crosses in.”

Kerkez talks about Robertson with obvious admiration but no fear.

“We all know what Andy did for the club. I’m not running away from that. I want to make my own way. I’m going to work hard. I know what it means to play for Liverpool. I showed it a bit last year and I am going to show it more this year.”

He has found his own circle inside the dressing room. Dominik Szoboszlai, his fellow Hungary international, has taken on a visible leadership role during this pre‑season, often side by side with Kerkez among a relatively young squad. Mohamed Salah has become a close friend; the Egyptian’s numbers still leave him stunned.

“Before we left the Axa to come to Chicago I saw on TV a show about how many goals and assists Mo had, it was something like 380,” Kerkez says. “I just walked out! ‘What is this?’ I was thinking. Time flies. A new generation comes and hopefully everything will be good.”

A new role, a new edge

Kerkez was eligible for Hungary through his paternal grandparents. His path from Vrbas to the Premier League has never been straightforward, never neat. That might be why he looks so comfortable in the chaos Iraola demands.

“He’s very professional,” Kerkez says of his new head coach. “He likes to talk sometimes but not a lot. I think maybe he doesn’t want to get too close to some players and wants to show that everyone is the same in the team, so he doesn’t want to get too close to anyone in particular. He keeps it professional, with a lot of hard work.”

Hard work is the theme of this tour. On Wednesday, Liverpool face Wrexham in New York, another step in Iraola’s attempt to imprint his style on a group still adjusting to life after a title win and a managerial sacking.

For Kerkez, the path is clearer than most. He knows exactly what Iraola wants from a full-back: defend first, run relentlessly, attack with conviction. He has lived it before. He thrived in it before.

The wedding rumours will fade. The photos from Vrbas will be replaced by new images – of a left-back tearing up the touchline, underlapping, overlapping, pressing high, running until tomorrow.

He has already carried a bride to church. Now comes the heavier lift: carrying his own name into the space Robertson once owned and proving that, in this new Liverpool, the left flank belongs to him.