Danny Murphy's Take on Liverpool's Full-Backs and Ronald Araujo

Danny Murphy believes Liverpool’s recruitment team will keep a close, methodical eye on Ronald Araujo this season – but he does not see the Uruguayan as a ready-made heir to Virgil van Dijk, and he is far more concerned about the club’s full-back situation.

Speaking to GOAL in association with Snabbare, the former Liverpool midfielder was asked whether Araujo could be signed permanently next summer and moved inside to eventually take over Van Dijk’s role at the heart of defence, allowing Andoni Iraola to target a new full-back.

Murphy pushed back on that idea.

He expects Liverpool to track Araujo’s progress “game-in, game-out, week-to-week”, but not with a grand succession plan already inked in. Van Dijk’s age and status, he argued, mean the club will stay “open-minded to what else is out there” rather than anointing a single successor this early.

Where Murphy did not hold back was on the full-backs already at Anfield.

He pointed straight at a structural problem that, in his view, cuts against everything Liverpool built their recent success on. For years, the team leaned heavily on two full-backs who were “wonderfully good going forward”, protected by a midfield drilled to cover when they “bombed on”. The whole system was tuned to that strength.

Now, he says, that edge has gone.

“The full-backs at the moment aren't good enough with the ball,” Murphy warned, and that becomes a glaring issue in a side that dominates possession in most games. With modern football crowding the middle of the pitch, opponents lock down central areas and invite play into wide zones. That leaves full-backs seeing huge volumes of the ball. The numbers prove it.

For Liverpool, Murphy argued, the output from those areas simply is not there.

He pointed to Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez as examples, insisting their end product falls below the standard a club of Liverpool’s ambitions requires. They are not compensating at the other end either. If you are going to accept some attacking wastefulness, he suggested, the trade-off has to be rock-solid defending. “The answer is no.”

His verdict on their Liverpool careers so far was blunt: “Both of them have failed, in terms of so far, let's say, in their Liverpool career.”

Murphy did show some sympathy for Frimpong. The Dutchman’s best season came in a more advanced role, not as a traditional right-back, and Murphy questioned the logic of dropping him into that position in “one of the hardest leagues in the world”. The criticism, he stressed, is as much about the decision-making behind the signing as the player himself.

Araujo, by contrast, draws praise for how naturally he handles defensive duties when used wider. Murphy highlighted the defender’s “defensive mind” and even nodded to his “wonderful flick” to set up Dominik Szoboszlai against Atletico Madrid. Yet he stopped short of rebranding him as the kind of swashbuckling, high-output full-back Liverpool once relied on.

You would not, Murphy said, class Araujo as a “marauding full-back who's going to whip crosses in and create goals.”

Which is why, for all the intrigue around Araujo’s future and Van Dijk’s eventual successor, Murphy keeps circling back to the same conclusion: this is a problem position that needs addressing.

“I think it's a definite area for Liverpool to look at, even in January.”