Frimpong's defensive frailties expose Liverpool's costly full-back oversight in Forest draw

Jeremie Frimpong’s role in two Nottingham Forest goals during Liverpool’s 2-2 draw at the weekend has thrown a sharp light on a recurring defensive vulnerability — and a transfer window that may have prioritised the wrong positions.

Forest’s opener, scored by Dan Ndoye, came with Frimpong positioned on the right wing rather than in his defensive station. Their second stemmed from Frimpong losing Neco Williams from a quick throw-in; Williams won the penalty that levelled the match, prompting former Liverpool defender Steven Gerrard to remark post-game that his old club need a full-back.

The irony is hard to miss. Frimpong arrived at Liverpool in the same window that Trent Alexander-Arnold departed, yet the club’s transfer activity has centred on attacking reinforcements. With three days remaining in the window, Liverpool were preparing to spend between £106m and £120m on Paris Saint-Germain winger Bradley Barcola. That outlay on wide forwards has left the right-back position looking conspicuously thin.

Manager Andoni Iraola’s response to the problem has been pragmatic if unconventional. Dominik Szoboszlai, who scored a 99th-minute penalty in Liverpool’s opening fixture, finished the Forest game deployed as a right-back — a role the Hungarian midfielder made clear earlier this year he does not consider his own. That Iraola arrived at the same conclusion as Szoboszlai’s previous manager Arne Slot — that the midfielder can be used as an emergency full-back — suggests the issue is structural rather than tactical preference.

Frimpong’s profile complicates matters further. He flourished at Bayer Leverkusen primarily as a wing-back in a system that accommodated his attacking instincts. Liverpool can reasonably argue he was not signed as a conventional right-back but as a versatile right-sided player. Yet the evidence from the opening weeks of the season — including a similar defensive lapse when Joe Willock scored from the same channel against Newcastle the previous Sunday — points to a pattern.

Slot, during his tenure, tended to prefer Szoboszlai or the now-departed Curtis Jones at right-back over Frimpong, which itself speaks to how the club viewed his defensive reliability. Neco Williams, once Alexander-Arnold’s understudy and long since moved on, would currently walk into this Liverpool side — a telling measure of how exposed the position has become.

Whether Liverpool move to address it before the window closes, or whether Frimpong is given time to adapt to Iraola’s demands, the 2-2 draw against Forest has made the question impossible to ignore.