Anfield Updates

Facts Why Trent Alexander-Arnold Has come to stay"

Publish Friday 18th August 2017 by Yayo    ⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇⇇

On paper, Liverpool’s first Champions League result under the management of Jurgen Klopp was almost perfect. Bringing two away goals back from Germany for the home leg at Anfield is the ideal scenario, but these were punctured by an irksome late strike from Mark Uth.

Those who witnessed the game will tell you that Liverpool rode their luck and were poor in several areas, especially centrally, but they will also tell stories of a first senior goal for 18-year-old academy product Trent Alexander-Arnold.

The summary of the game showed a Liverpool-born player on the score sheet, and a welcome Scouse accent could be heard in the post match interviews. The club and the city are as European as they come, but the Reds strive for local identity among their diversity and their new right back, in that sense, is picking up where Steven Gerrard left off.

The day after the match the local boy was in all the photographs. Alexander-Arnold was born in the West Derby region of Liverpool close to the club’s Melwood training ground. In the game against Hoffenheim he showed that his work on the fields of Melwood Drive was beginning to pay off as he bent a wicked free kick over and around a fragmented opposition wall.

It was an unexpected moment. Emre Can and Alberto Moreno were lining up to take the set piece with Alexander-Arnold there to make up the numbers, surely. But the bandy-legged teenager stepped up and arced the ball past a helpless Oliver Baumann.


“I’ve been practising free-kicks but I didn’t think the senior players would let me take it,” he said after the game. “In the end they did and I did well for the team.”
Indeed, there has been more than this highlight reel free-kick to the right-back’s game so far this season, and though he may have shown a couple of faults in his early forays into the first team, these have been far fewer than the amount made by the supposedly more experienced heads around him.

It’s been a shaky start to the season at the back for Liverpool, but working up and down the right flank in the place of the injured Nathaniel Clyne, Alexander-Arnold has been, along with Sadio Mane, one of the side’s standout players.
Which begs the question: should he now keep his place in the team ahead of Clyne?
The answer is yes.

Alexander-Arnold was used sporadically last season in support of the England international, but it’s now time for the roles to reverse.
The youngster will not be able to play every game, and it would be wise for the manager to play him in spells in order to avoid burnout. Liverpool face a tough but potentially rewarding fixture list as they balance three domestic competitions with a European campaign, and all positions will need two strong options in order to keep the squad fresh, fit, and firing on all cylinders.

But in each position there is always a preferred choice, regardless of squad depth, and at right back this player should now by Alexander-Arnold. Clyne will get plenty of games — there’s no doubt about that. He’ll be needed to help his team-mate avoid fatigue, and there will be occasions when rest is needed if there are two or more games per week.

Competition in the right back position has long been a problem at Liverpool, but now the only problem Jurgen Klopp faces is which one of the two to pick. Clyne played 41 games in all competitions last season, and that was without European football. This season the work should at least be shared, and there is a strong case to be made for Alexander-Arnold taking on the bulk of it. Even if he’s on the bench he could come on in place of a midfielder, having played many games in the centre of the park for Liverpool’s youth teams, so he and Clyne could appear together on the pitch at some point.

These midfielder-like traits make him the club’s best long-term option at right back — a position which increasingly requires players to be smart in possession as well as dynamic in both attack and defence.
Alexander-Arnold appears to have it all, and he could go on to replace Steven Gerrard in more ways than simply being the new Scouser on the block. Nathaniel Clyne, meanwhile, may be worried about his place in the Liverpool team, but if Trent’s rise continues he and Kyle Walker may eventually be unseated at international level too.

                      ........This is Anfield

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