Milos Kerkez: Embracing New Challenges at Liverpool

Milos Kerkez is still laughing about the wedding.

Not his wedding, as he is at pains to point out. The Liverpool full-back has spent much of his summer batting away congratulations after a photograph of him escorting a bride into a church in his hometown of Vrbas went viral. On a rooftop terrace at Liverpool’s team hotel, the subject comes up within minutes.

“No! This is wrong, everyone gets this wrong!” he fires back, half amused, half exasperated. It was his oldest brother, Rade, who got married. In Serbia, the youngest brother takes the bride to the church. Tradition, not matrimony. “I keep having to explain to people that I never got married,” he says. Back at Liverpool, team-mates and staff were offering handshakes and best wishes. His reply was always the same: “No, I’m not ready for this yet!”

Marriage can wait. Responsibility cannot.

From Slot’s shock exit to an Iraola reunion

Kerkez’s summer has already packed in a full season’s worth of plot twists. Time at home in Serbia. Breaks in Montenegro and Spain. Then a frantic knock on his bedroom door: Arne Slot had been sacked. Twelve months after delivering the Premier League title, Liverpool’s head coach was gone.

“I was back in Serbia, I was sleeping and my brother woke me up,” Kerkez recalls. “He knocks on my door and it was a big surprise. Nobody knew. I couldn’t believe it, I was like: ‘Wow.’” The pair have stayed in touch since, exchanging messages after Slot’s dismissal. There is no bitterness, no blame. Just surprise at how quickly the ground can shift under your boots at a club of this size.

The shock soon gave way to something else: familiarity. Liverpool turned to Andoni Iraola, the coach who had helped turn Kerkez from a raw, attacking full-back into a £40 million defender at Bournemouth and a member of the Professional Footballers’ Association’s team of the year in 2024-25.

“I was delighted, honestly,” Kerkez says of the appointment. “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.”

Perfect fit is a bold phrase, but there is no mistaking his conviction. Iraola’s football is not for the faint of heart: high pressing, aggressive duels, relentless running. It is also, crucially, built for full-backs like Kerkez.

“It’s the intensity,” he explains. “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.”

At Liverpool’s pre-season camp at Chicago Fire’s performance centre, that intensity has been on full display. Double sessions. A win over Sunderland in Nashville. And a new hierarchy quietly forming in a relatively young squad. Kerkez and his fellow Hungary international Dominik Szoboszlai have stepped into visible leadership roles, their voices and standards carrying weight.

When Iraola runs small-sided games, he calls them “consequences”. The losing team – and sometimes the runners-up – run. How far? That depends on his mood. But there is always running. Always a price to pay.

“He’s intense and he likes details. He’s very professional,” Kerkez says. “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. He keeps it professional, with a lot of hard work.”

Out of Robertson’s shadow

Last season, under Slot, Kerkez often looked like a player trying to colour inside lines that did not quite suit him. The Dutchman’s insistence on building from the back, full-backs stepping inside, controlled possession: it brought a title, but did not always bring the best out of a defender whose game thrives on open grass and straight-line aggression.

At Bournemouth, Kerkez had been a blur up and down the left flank, his pace and stamina a constant outlet. That was the version Liverpool thought they had signed. That is the version Iraola knows how to unlock.

“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.”

The message from Iraola has always been simple: defend first, then enjoy yourself.

“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.”

That freedom will matter now more than ever. Kerkez was not just bought as cover; he was bought as the heir to Andy Robertson, one of the defining full-backs of Liverpool’s modern era. The Scotland captain’s move to Tottenham this summer formally ended a chapter that had been closing for a while.

Inside the dressing room, though, there was no grand passing of the torch. No carefully scripted farewell speech.

“I didn’t want to get a lot on to him,” Kerkez says of Robertson’s final days at Anfield. “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.”

The help was practical, specific, rooted in the reality of playing left-back for a team that expects its defenders to run until their lungs burn.

“We had a few conversations about crosses and about the big lungs we need to have so we can run until tomorrow,” Kerkez says. “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.”

He does not hide from Robertson’s legacy. He does not pretend it does not exist.

“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.”

Built different

If Kerkez sounds unusually unfazed by the scale of what lies ahead, it is because he has long viewed pressure through a different lens.

“Honestly, I don’t care about pressure,” he says. “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.”

Then comes the story that explains a lot. At 10 years old, he was already “driving” a truck with his father, Sebastijan.

“It was with my dad,” he clarifies. “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.”

The family bond has not loosened with fame or fortune. Quite the opposite. His parents, Sebastijan and Tijana, have moved to England to help their youngest son settle into life as a Premier League footballer. His father still drives him to Liverpool’s training centre on some days. The dynamic has not changed much either.

“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.”

The “smack” is metaphorical, the message very real.

“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 was needed last season as Liverpool lurched from one problem to another. Every time one issue seemed fixed, another appeared. For a club that had just reclaimed the title, the campaign felt strangely joyless. The expensive recruitment drive that was supposed to refresh the squad did not fully deliver. Kerkez, at least, emerged with credit, but he felt the collective strain.

He calls it “tough for everyone”. The scrutiny on new signings was fierce, the margin for error thin. Yet he insists the noise did not touch him. Serbia had already toughened his skin.

New voices, old standards

On the pitch, Kerkez is not just a runner. Around the training ground, he has become a presence. In Chicago, he and Szoboszlai have been among the loudest, driving standards, setting the tone. This is not a dressing room packed with thirty-somethings any more. A new core is forming, and the Hungarian pair are at the heart of it.

He has also found his way into the orbit of Liverpool’s biggest star. Last season, he became close friends with Mohamed Salah, a daily reminder of what sustained excellence really looks like. The numbers still stun him.

“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,” he says. “I just walked out! ‘What is this?’ I was thinking. Time flies. A new generation comes and hopefully everything will be good.”

That line hangs in the air. Time flies. A new generation comes.

Kerkez will play against Wrexham in New York on Wednesday, another step on a tour that is about more than fitness. It is about identity. About what Iraola’s Liverpool will look like. About who will lead it.

For Kerkez, the path is clear. Out from under Robertson’s shadow. Back under Iraola’s wing. The wedding rumours can fade. The real commitment now is to a touchline, a touch-tackle, a touch higher up the pitch.

He did not get married this summer. Instead, he tied himself to something far more demanding: the expectation that, on Liverpool’s left flank, a new story is ready to be written.