Trent ALEXANDER-ARNOLD: 2022/23

We’re playing two games a week, so it’s about managing his minutes. My view is that Trent yesterday had a defensively very solid game.

With Neco gone, a callow Calvin Ramsey in his place, and time catching up with Milner, our only other alternative is Joe Gomez doing a job there.

If Milner is selected again at RB when Trent is subbed, his role should be more of an orthodox right back rather than in superman mode, trying to press, make runs forward, challenge, come into midfield, etc.

I reckon Klopp is managing his attitude.

Maybe I’m reading it wrong but he is looking a bit arrogant and big headed.

I don’t think that’s fair. He (and Robbo) both look shagged out.

I think there is increasing evidence that pre-season has gone a bit wrong. We’ve got lads who are clearly exhausted, loads of injuries, and we’re having to manage minutes.

He looks a little slower to me this season. Like he has bulked up too much over the summer. That said, I think he receives far too much negativity. He’s far from our biggest problem and still our best hope of creating chances. I wonder if people are harder on him cos he’s a local lad?

21000 minutes between club and country for Robbo and Trent in 2 years… Too many…

I am uncomfortable with this for two reasons:

  1. If he’s constantly further up the pitch, then we are out of shape and prone to the counter
  2. The primary job of defender is to defend

Ideally TAA can provide a critical ball every now and then - atm he seems to be the go to for the magical pass. The creativity we rely on him for should more often than not come from the midfield or at least be more evenly distributed. Moreover most teams probably set up to target the space behind TAA because they know he will be up field and that there will be space there pretty much every time our play breaks down.

Not sure how you can watch Liverpool over the past 5 years, witnessing our incredible success with an system that Trent’s attacking/passing is key to, and come up with that over-simplistic conclusion

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Are we now too predictable? Is it more surprising that it (reliance and success on/of TAA) has lasted that long? The exploitation of the space left behind TAA is not new, it’s been developing. We either counter with more and more game plan gymnastics of go back to something a bit more basic.

Yes, without Thiago playing we don’t know what to do against teams sitting deep… So what typically happens is it gets passed around slowly, ends up at Trent who takes on a risky pass trying to force the game.

We need someone to take risks. Trent is asked to do this then takes pelters for one bad pass, ignoring all the wonderful passes he makes

We didn’t do much with Thiago playing either. He’s a great player but his role in this team is often so overrated it’s unbelievable.

I do think the lack of pre season has hurt them both (In Robbo), that right side was the danger when Elliott played with them and now it’s looking lacklustre.

The new tactical set up effects him and Robbo the most I suppose. Are we expecting the midfield to cover him or not anymore? he cannot change his game overnight and become a defensive minded full back. The space which was left behind is becoming more evident this season as it is no longer covered the way Hendo or Gini used to do.

The lack of attempting to track back when losing the ball is something I am difficult to comprehend. If it is just tiredness, then he should be rotated which isn’t happening either. That cannot be tactical for sure.

Both below instances are really worrying to me (ignore the words in the tweet):

This has nothing to do with tactics - second month into the season and he looks dead tired and disinterested. Napoli’s second and third and Sancho’s opening goal have no place in five-a-side football, let alone Champions League. What hurts me the most is that we’re talking about a player who redefined his role so well that books will be written about it and who’s captain material and potential one club player. Maybe it’s Wan-Bissaka jokes coming back to bite us in the arse but his form has fallen off a cliff.

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How’s Trent getting the blame for the 2nd one there? 3 players closer than him and Fab just stands and looks at the ball as it passes him

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Definitely Fab is to blame and had posted in his topic as well. Trent here IMO was in no man’s land and seems to know the run was being made. Again probably the last one in this run of play to be blamed but in general his defensive effort seems lacking… Kind of don’t care attitude if we concede.

You can argue about half the team being terrible, but Trent is poor for most of their goals, and most conceeded this season. The above has been seen time and time again, he gets easily bypassed then just gives up. You can’t even blame that on him being up the field doing what is asked, he’s literally in position and just gives up, think about that a player who just stops trying.

If he wants to be seen as world class then you can’t be this disinterested in the team work element.

Between Trent and Klopp they need to work out why every single team attacks his channel over and over and fix it. If that means Trent playing more defensive for a while, then so be it. If he won’t drop him.

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In my opinion, it looked as though he was simply too slow to react, and by the time he realised the danger, he also knew that he was not in a place to do anything about it anymore.

That was pretty much the same story for almost everyone on that pitch last night, and indeed for the past few games. Balls that we would once have chased down are being given up on, simply because we know that the bodies won’t make it there. Salah doesn’t seem to have recognised that, but his control of the ball is also crumbling. Where he would once have magically kept balls in, they’re now out before he can even touch them.

This is what I’m seeing - disinterest. What worries me most about this is he’s meant to be the local lad in the team and understands what it means to be in that shirt - to never stop, always graft - and that’s what I’m not seeing from him. Whether it be a physical issue, mental issue, or both, something needs to change.

Future captain - not sure about that right now to be honest with you, particularly when it comes to the defensive side of the game.

If you’re judging by what’s going on this season, we’ll never have a captain.